Caprifoliaceae

Armen Takhtajan is among the greatest authorities in the world on the evolution of plants. This book culminates almost sixty years of the scientist's research of the origin and classification of the flowering plants. It presents a continuation of Dr. Takhtajan’s earlier publications including “Systema Magnoliophytorum” (1987), (in Russian), and “Diversity and Classification of Flowering Plants” (1997), (in English). In his latest book, the author presents a concise and significantly revised system of plant classification (‘Takhtajan system’) based on the most recent studies in plant morphology, embryology, phytochemistry, cytology, molecular biology and palynology. Flowering plants are divided into two classes: class Magnoliopsida (or Dicotyledons) includes 8 subclasses, 126 orders, c. 440 families, almost 10,500 genera, and no less than 195,000 species; and class Liliopsida (or Monocotyledons) includes 4 subclasses, 31 orders, 120 families, more than 3,000 genera, and about 65,000 species.This book contains a detailed description of plant orders, and descriptive keys to plant families providing characteristic features of the families and their differences.

This book is an up-to-date checklist of the current valid taxonomyfor all vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens in British Columbia,including synonyms, species codes, and other information. A convenient,geographically restricted, comprehensive checklist like this one willaid greatly in avoiding the present confusion concerning the names ofmany species in the ecological and systematic literature, as well as inapplied fields. The book is organized into three sections. Part 1 organizes speciesalphabetically according to taxonomic order by families of vascularplants, bryophytes, and lichens. Within each family, the genera arelisted alphabetically, along with any synonomies (former names) andcommon names. In Part 2 species are organized alphabetically accordingto their scientific names. Part 3 lists common names followed by theirscientific names. Excluded names (names inappropriately applied toplants in B.C.) are given in an appendix. Those familiar with planttaxonomy will find Part 1 particularly helpful when checkingnomenclature; semi-professionals familiar with scientific names willuse Part 2 and then Part 1; those who know only common names will checkPart 3 and then Part 2 and Part 1 to determine families. There is presently considerable confusion about many species namesin B.C. Plant names change for many reasons and new plants invade.Information about plants in B.C. is scattered in several checklists,most of them incomplete or out of date; for some species, such asliverworts, no provincial checklist even exists. This checklisttherefore will be useful to all professionals working with vegetationand for students in agriculture, botany, ecology, forestry and othersciences. Although the focus is on B.C., the book will also be usefuloutside the province, particularly in the northwest American states andin Alberta and the Yukon.

The culmination of more than fifty years of research by the foremost living expert on plant classification, Diversity and Classification of Flowering Plants is an important contribution to the field of plant taxonomy. In the last decade, the system of classifying plants has been thoroughly revised. Instead of describing every individual family, Takhtajan includes descriptions in keys to families, which he calls "descriptive keys." The advantage of descriptive keys is that they give both the characteristic features of the families and their differences. The delimitation of families and orders drastically differs from the one accepted by the Englerian school and from the one accepted in Arthur Cronquist's system. Takhtajan favors the smaller, more natural families and orders, which are more coherent and better-defined, where characters are easily grasped, and which are more suitable for information retrieval and phylogenetic studies, including cladistic analysis (because it reduces polymorphic codings).

In a case study of urban biodiversity, Erik Kiviat and Kristi MacDonald present two decades of data and assessment of the habitats and biota of the Meadowlands. Urban Biodiversity: The Natural History of the New Jersey Meadowlands documents the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, seed plants, mosses, and lichens of the Meadowlands region and their patterns of occurrence. The work records the natural history of an urban-industrial region, helping decision- makers foster the biodiversity that thrives in cities and giving planners tools to reduce the biological degradation that occurs with urbanization. For more info, please visit this link: https://www.hudsonia.org/nj-meadowlands

This reference work covers general concepts of anti-viral metabolites, classifications, ethnopharmacology, chemistry, clinical and preclinical studies focusing on different medicinal plants against various types of viral infections. Various plants have been used in medicine since ancient times and are known for their strong therapeutic effects. The book will describe potential antiviral properties of medicinal plants against a diverse group of viruses, and provide an insight to the potential plants possess for broad-spectrum antiviral effects against emerging viral infections. The book aims to target a broad audience including virologists, molecular biologist, microbiologist and scientists working with natural products as well as researchers, students, healthcare experts involved in pharmaceutical and medical field.

-- Natural History