Book Review 16
Review
Title: Plant Systematics
ISBN 13: 9780123743800
Published: 2010
Pages: 740
Cost: $89.95
Rating (1-5): 4
Submitted By: Gift, Nancy
Date posted: November 07, 2011
Engaging, comprehensive This book has a comprehensive and valuable information about Plant Systematics
In teaching plant identification or plant systematics, the primary goals of the instructor should certainly include clarity and mastery of the details. Simpson’s book, Plant Systematics (2nd edition), makes achieving both of these goals simpler. The book is logically organized and includes abundant bold-faced terms (matched with a lengthy glossary), illustrations of order-level plant phylogeny, citations of notable primary literature, and abundant photographs. Covering not only the major plant orders (Section II), Simpson’s text also gives a thorough introduction to the subject of systematics in general, species concepts (Section I), the processes of identification, nomenclature, collections, and herbarium storage (Section IV). Systematics as a process could be taught using the book’s Section III, featuring techniques in morphology, anatomy, embryology, palynology, reproductive biology, and molecular systematics. Appendices include research methods, comprising determining quantitative and qualitative character states, a discussion of illustration techniques, plant descriptive language, and scientific journals in plant systematics. The book, possibly overwhelming to a student arriving accidentally in introductory plant identification, can carry this same student through graduate level work in plant systematics research. If the student decides to stop after the introductory course, it will not be for lack of knowledge about the charms and challenges of systematics as a research area.
The only possible challenge reading this book might be that the level of detail invites the potential for impossible-to-pass examinations, or that students might have a difficult time sifting more important points amidst the many details (Judd, Campbell, Kellogg, and Stevens’ text on Plant Systematics is less intimidating, with excellent illustrations, but also less richly photograph-laden). Simpson’s book makes many levels of plant systematics coursework accessible with a single text, and photos include the full botanical range from rare, endangered and biologically fascinating to weedy, edible, ornamental, and economically important. Left open at one of the photo spreads, sitting in a home living room, it could masquerade as coffee table fare, even if a casual reader might get the impression, from the highly technical botanical vocabulary, that the book is written in a foreign language. Simpson’s Plant Systematics book is not for the casual reader or dilettante student, though it may be attractive enough to transform its readers from a beginner to a professional