This exciting new book describes the use of DNA fingerprinting and its application in a wide area of plant and fungal research. It presents a thorough theoretical introduction to DNA fingerprinting, the practical aspects of extraction of DNA from the plant or fungus under study, and the statistical analysis of the data. An overview presents all species to which DNA fingerprinting is currently being applied and highlights many future technical developments.

In the five years since the publication of Molecular Systematics of Plants, the field of molecular systematics has advanced at an astonishing pace. This period has been marked by a volume of new empirical data and advances in theoretical and analytical issues related to DNA. Comparative DNA sequencing, facilitated by the amplification of DNA via the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), has become the tool of choice for molecular systematics. As a result, large portions of the Molecular Systematics of Plants have become outdated. Molecular Systematics of Plants II summarizes these recent achievements in plant molecular systematics. Like its predecessor, this completely revised work illustrates the potential of DNA markers for addressing a wide variety of phylogenetic and evolutionary questions. The volume provides guidance in choosing appropriate techniques, as well as appropriate genes for sequencing, for given levels of systematic inquiry. More than a review of techniques and previous work, Molecular Systematics of Plants II provides a stimulus for developing future research in this rapidly evolving field. Molecular Systematics of Plants II is not only written for systematists (faculty, graduate students, and researchers), but also for evolutionary biologists, botanists, and paleobotanists interested in reviewing current theory and practice in plant molecular systematics.

This book provides both a handy reference to the scientific names of plants and a clearly written account of the ways in which the naming of plants has changed with time and why these changes were necessary. It deals with the problems of using common names for plants against the historical background of our increasing discrimination of kinds of plants. It then goes on to consider landmarks in the standardization of both common and 'scientific' names and the development of internationally agreed principles governing the format and use of names in botany, sylviculture, agriculture and horticulture. From the alphabetical list the reader may interpret the scientific names of plants from any part of the world. For this second edition a number of changes and corrections in both parts have been made. The author has attempted to keep the first part acceptable to the amateur gardener by resisting a temptation to make it a definite guide to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Others have done this already and with great clarity. Revision has allowed the inclusion of a brief comment on both synonymous and illegitimate botanical names and reference to recent attempts to accommodate the various traits and interests in the naming and names of cultivated plants.