The palms of the Amazon /

Henderson's technical treatise is aimed primarily at graduate students and professional botanists, and will serve as the standard reference for this group of plants in the Amazon. The introductory chapters adequately provide the background data on the geographical setting of the Amazon basin, climate, soils, vegetation types, and human occupation. Following is a very abbreviated overview of the taxonomy, morphology, and biology of the palm family. Another section holds botanical keys, plant descriptions with line drawings, and geographical information on all known genera and species of palms in the Amazon. However, there is no economic or ethnobotanical information provided on individual species. The botanical keys are easy to use; but, in many cases, all parts of the plant are needed to properly key out the vegetative and reproductive structures. The Amazon basin is not accessible to most botanists on a regular basis (where the investigator can return to a collection site repeatedly and eventually obtain all the plant organs necessary to make an identification); thus, specific organ keys would have been helpful in the book. Graduate students; faculty; professionals. M. S. Zavada; Providence College