This book represents the most comprehensive compilation of data on threatened vascular plants ever published. It includes the names of some 33,000 plant species determined to be rare or threatened on a global scale. Conservation assessments were provided by the IUCN Species Survival Commission, the National Botanical Institute (South Africa), Environment Australia, and CSIRO, The Nature Conservancy, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, together with hundreds of botanic gardens and botanists throughout the world. The Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and the New York Botanical Garden have made major in-kind contributions.The result of 20 years work by botanists and conservationists around the world, it is intended as a conservation tool, a provider of baseline information to measure conservation progress and as a primary source of data on plant species. Most importantly, however, it provides the building blocks on which to base a worldwide effort to conserve plant species.

Containing 500 full color photographs and illustrations, The Bench Grafter’s Handbook: Principles and Practice presents exhaustive information on all aspects of bench grafting. It details requirements of more than 200 temperate woody plant genera, covering over 2,000 species and cultivars including important ornamental, temperate fruit, and nut crops. The book explains the principles and practices of bench grafting, new procedures to enhance grafting success, and recommendations for further scientific investigation. Practical issues to aid professionals and the beginner, include detailed accounts, supported by pictures and diagrams, of the main grafting methods, knifesmanship techniques, and methods of training. Provision and design, now and for the future, of suitable structures, grafting facilities, and equipment, to provide ideal controlled environments for grafts, are described. The book describes major grafting systems, sub-cold, cold, warm, supported warm, hot-pipe, and other grafting strategies. It provides details of health and safety issues; work stations, seat design, lighting levels; recorded output figures for various types of graft; grafting knives and tools; and methods of sharpening by hand and machine. Features: Comprehensive description, pictures, and diagrams of how to learn and utilize important grafting methods. Detailed information and scientific principles behind the selection, specification, and choice of the main graft components – the rootstock and scion. Scientific principles and practicalities of providing optimal plant material, equipment, facilities and environmental conditions for graft union development including addressing the problems of graft incompatibility. Discussion of the actual and potential role of bench grafting in woody plant conservation with suggestions for new initiatives. This book is intended for use by nurserymen; those involved in the upkeep of extensive plant collections; conservationists; plant scientists; lecturers in horticulture; horticultural students; and amateurs with an interest in grafting.

Only a green world, rich in plants, can sustain us and the millions of other species with which we share this planet. But, in an era of global change, nature is on the retreat. Like the communities they form, many plant species are becoming rarer, threatened even to the point of extinction. The worldwide community of almost three thousand botanic gardens are holders of the most diverse living collections of plants and have the unique potential to conserve plant diversity. Conservation biology is a fast moving and often controversial field, and, as the contributions within these pages from experts in the field demonstrate, plant conservation is multifaceted, mirroring the complexity of the biodiversity it aims to protect, and striving not just to protect threatened plants but to preserve ecosystem services and secure the integrity of the biosphere.

Information on 250 selected plants on a world scale.

"Wildlife in a Changing World" presents an analysis of the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Beginning with an explanation of the IUCN Red List as a key conservation tool, it goes on to discuss the state of the world s species and provides the latest information on the patterns of species facing extinction in some of the most important ecosystems in the world, highlighting the reasons behind their declining status. Areas of focus in the report include: freshwater biodiversity, the status of the world s marine species, species susceptibility to climate change impacts, the Mediterranean biodiversity hot spot, and broadening the coverage of biodiversity assessments."