Review by Choice Review
Students of botany often struggle with the unusual names used to describe the morphological features and arrangement of plant parts in plant identification keys or botany texts. This illustrated glossary should make the task of plant identification easier and facilitate the learning of plant science. All terms likely to be encountered in describing vascular plants are included. The first part of the book consists of a standard glossary with references to illustrations in the second part. The illustrations are arranged by specific plant features, beginning with roots and progressing through stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, etc. The arrangement by plant part allows easy comparison of different forms and makes the work's illustrations browsable. For example, the user can browse the illustrations of fruits or can turn to the glossary for a description of a fruit type and a reference to a specific illustration. A similar work, James G. Harris and Melinda Woolf Harris's Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary (CH, Nov'94; 2nd ed., 2001), is also useful. Academic and special libraries will want both. T. McKimmie New Mexico State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
