Floral Diagrams: An Aid to Understanding Flower Morphology and Evolution by Louis P. Ronse De Craene

Floral morphology remains the cornerstone for plant identification and studies of plant evolution. This guide gives a global overview of the floral diversity of the angiosperms through the use of detailed floral diagrams. These schematic diagrams replace long descriptions or complicated drawings as a tool for understanding floral structure and evolution. They show important features of flowers, such as the relative positions of the different organs, their fusion, symmetry, and structural details. The relevance of the diagrams is discussed, and pertinent evolutionary trends are illustrated. The range of plant species represented reflects the most recent classification of flowering plants based mainly on molecular data, which is expected to remain stable in the future. This book is invaluable for researchers and students working on plant structure, development and systematics, as well as being an important resource for plant ecologists, evolutionary botanists and horticulturists.

"This work suggests a strong potential synergy between morphological studies and evolutionary developmental genetics research, and will be a valuable reference for students or professionals in botany, plant systematics, and evoultionary developmental biology."
R.M. Warner, Choice Magazine