Plant conservation : a natural history approach /

This work aims to show the need for natural history in informing plant conservation in four basic sections presenting (1) a framework for understanding plant diversity, (2) evolutionary and taxonomic threats to plant diversity, (3) causes of present-day plant extinctions, and (4) assessments, management strategies, and conservation actions. The book suffers from lack of cohesiveness in the contributions by 48 authors. Most chapters, though written by authorities, appear as abbreviated summaries of longer review chapters published elsewhere. The attempt to be concise prevents the authors from providing the necessary depth of information or a sophisticated synthesis. What remains is an odd collection of poorly linked individual stories, often not even about plant taxa. For the interested novice, the information is too specialized; for the specialist, more detailed reviews, often by the same authors, are available. The book highlights the many facets that need to inform plant conservation, yet a more extensive treatment with in-depth analyses might have been a better approach to show how meaningful and useful the holdings and human resources of natural history institutions are for modern plant conservation. ^BSumming Up: Not recommended. B. Blossey Cornell University