The Kew tropical plant families identification handbook / edited by Timothy Utteridge & Gemma Bramley.

"The tropics with their lush rainforests are extremely rich in plant life but are still comparatively unknown to botanical science. Botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew have a centuries-long tradition of exploring and plant collecting in the tropics. The unsurpassed practical knowledge of the tropical plants they have encountered is brought together in The Kew Tropical Plant Families Identification Handbook, a guide to the commonly encountered and ecologically important plants of the tropics. Written by Kew's experts, this handbook is based on Kew's Tropical Plant Identification course, which uses both classical morphology and simple 'spot' characters, to teach plant identification. This fully updated second edition of the bestseller includes 17 new family and subfamily descriptions, bringing the total number covered in the book to 100. The detailed descriptions are richly illustrated throughout with photographs showing the important identification characters. The Kew Tropical Plant Families Identification Handbook is an invaluable, easy-to-use primary resource for any tropical botanist, as well as for students, conservation workers, ecologists and all those who wish to identify tropical plants."--Page [4] of cover.