Dear Plant-Ed folks,
I am developing a new course for Fall 2006 called "Field Botany and
Plant Systematics." I need to place an order soon for reference books
for the students to purchase -- I hope you have some good suggestions.
In this course I will be spending most of the time outdoors teaching
students how to identify our local flora, then the students will spend
time on their own using their references to work out each species'
taxonomy and to learn about the characters that place the species into
each taxonomic level. I still have my old "Vascular Plant Families" by
Smith (1977) which is nice but dated and detailed only at the level of
Family. Also, I want to select an updated short text on plant
systematics that (ideally) includes some history, an overview of
techniques, and current concepts of plant phylogeny (I will supplement
with journal articles). Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Janet Morrison, The College of New Jersey
