This well timed volume features a selection of chapters composed by experts in their respective fields. It covers a broad range of topics, from its fundamental biology to the fern’s population genetics and environmental and therapeutic applications.

The flora of the Mediterranean islands includes many rare and localized species unique to the islands. Some of these are particularly threatened with extinction due to various pressures caused by people and their activities in Mediterranean ecosystems. It includes 50 descriptive sheets of species which are especially threatened, based on the IUCN Red List criteria. Each sheet gives a description of the species with illustrations and maps, emphasizing the threats to the species, existing conservation measures and additional measures needed for their conservation. Aimed at the layman, the text is easily accessible to the non-botanist.

"This book is a review of the current scientific knowledge that underpins seed banking, a technology which plays a key role in the conservation of both domesticated and non-domesticated plant speices..."--Publisher description.