Agnes Arber (1879 1960) was a prominent British botanist specialising in plant morphology and comparative anatomy. In 1946 she became the first female botanist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. First published in 1934, this volume provides a detailed comparative study of the Gramineae family of plants, which includes cereals, grasses and bamboos. Arber focuses on the general morphological features of these plants as shown by anatomical analysis, describing their life cycles, reproductive and vegetative phases, and embryology. The Gramineae family contains vitally important food...

Sir Ferdinand von Muller (1825 1896) was a botanist renowned for his research on the native plants of Australia. After emigrating from Germany in 1847, he was appointed Government Botanist of Victoria in 1853 and subsequently Director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Melbourne, which post he held until 1873. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1861 and was knighted in 1879 for his services to Australian botany. This volume, first published in 1885, contains Muller's botanical survey of the plants found in the Australian state of New South Wales. Including an introduction by prominent...

Drewitt investigates the origins and history of this unique and fascinating educational garden.

Sir Andrew Halliday (1782 1839) served as a surgeon in the Peninsular War, and then as a royal physician. In 1832 he was appointed Inspector of Hospitals in the West Indies until ill-health forced his return to Scotland. During his time there he collected the information for this work, published in 1837. His study of the Windward and Leeward Islands in the West Indies is comprehensive. He covers the colonisation, administration, religious, social and economic history of the islands, flora and fauna, and the climate and diseases of the region. Trinidad he judged to be the most unhealthy of the...

Frederick Orpen Bower (1855 1948) was a renowned botanist best known for his research on the origins and evolution of ferns. Appointed Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow in 1885, he became a leading figure in the development of modern botany and the emerging field of paleobotany, devising the interpolation theory of the life cycle in land plants. First published between 1923 and 1928 as part of the Cambridge Botanical Handbook series, The Ferns was the first systematic classification of ferns according to anatomical, morphological and developmental features. In this...

Frederick Orpen Bower (1855 1948) was a renowned botanist best known for his research on the origins and evolution of ferns. Appointed Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow in 1885, he became a leading figure in the development of modern botany and the emerging field of paleobotany, devising the interpolation theory of the life cycle in land plants. First published between 1923 and 1928 as part of the Cambridge Botanical Handbook series, The Ferns was the first systematic classification of ferns according to anatomical, morphological and developmental features. In this...

Agnes Arber (1879 1960) was a prominent British botanist specialising in plant morphology, who focused her research on the monocotyledon group of flowering plants. She was the first female botanist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1946. This volume, first published as part of the Cambridge Botanical Handbooks series in 1925, provides an anatomical and comparative study of the monocotyledon group of plants with an analysis of the methods and objects of studying plant morphology. At the time of publication, comparative anatomy and morphology were the centre of botanical...

Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan (1879 1967) was a prominent British mycologist, specialising in the sexual process of fungi. In 1909 she was appointed Head of the Department of Botany at Birkbeck College, becoming Professor of Botany when Birkbeck College joined the University of London in 1920. This volume was first published in 1922 as part of the Cambridge Botanical Handbooks series. The introduction provides a detailed description of the structure, sexual reproduction, parasitism and symbiosis of all fungi, with subsequent chapters describing fully the morphology and reproduction of genera...

Agnes Arber (1879 1960) was a prominent British botanist specialising in plant morphology and comparative anatomy. In 1946, she became the first female botanist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. First published in 1920, this volume provides a detailed anatomical study of aquatic flowering plants, with a discussion of their evolutionary history. Arber describes the general anatomical and reproductive organs, life histories and physiological adaptations of aquatic plants in detail, with interpretations informed from her previous experimental work. The final section of this volume...

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 1913) was a British naturalist best remembered as the co-discoverer, with Darwin, of natural selection. His extensive fieldwork and advocacy of the theory of evolution led to him being considered one of the nineteenth century's foremost biologists. These volumes, first published in 1869, contain Wallace's acclaimed and highly influential account of extensive fieldwork he undertook in modern Indonesia, Malaysia and New Guinea between 1854 and 1862. Wallace describes his travels around the island groups, depicting the unusual animals and insects he encountered and...