Part of a series of volumes on the flora of tropical East Africa, this text covers the Lauraceae family.

This volume - the first of this series dealing with angiosperms - comprises the treatments of 73 families, representing three major blocks of the dicotyledons: magnoliids, centrosperms, and hamamelids. These blocks are generally recognized as subclasses in modern textbooks and works of reference. We consider them a convenient means for structuring the hundreds of di cotyledon families, but are far from taking them at face value for biological, let alone mono phyletic entities. Angiosperm taxa above the rank of family are little consolidated, as is easily seen when comparing various modern classifications. Genera and families, in contrast, are comparatively stable units -and they are important in practical terms. The genus is the taxon most frequently recognized as a distinct entity even by the layman, and generic names provide the key to all in formation available about plants. The family is, as a rule, homogeneous enough to conve niently summarize biological information, yet comprehensive enough to avoid excessive re dundance. The emphasis in this series is, therefore, primarily on families and genera.

India’s phytodiversity is one of the most significant in the world. India is one of the twelve mega-biodiversity centers in the world and also an important center of origin of agrobiodiversity. It is therefore, very important to study, document and conserve the plant wealth of India and also of the world before its possible extinction. There are convincing scientific, economic and sociological reasons for giving priority to the conservation of the major centers of plant diversity throughout the world. The strategies to conserve the biodiversity include establishment of protected area network and corridors with emphasis on appropriate levels of management, reduction of anthropogenic pressure on natural populations by cultivating them elsewhere, programmes of augmentation, reintroduction and introduction of target taxa, restoration of degraded habitats, etc. The conservation strategies can be either, in-situ conservation of genetic resources within their ecosystem and natural habitat or ex-situ conservation of components of genetic material of biological diversity outside their natural habitat. The choice of conservation strategy depends upon the nature of the material to be conserved, i.e., the life cycle and mode of reproduction, size of individual population and ecological status. Ex-situ techniques include the establishment of botanical and zoological gardens, banks of pollen, seed tissue culture, DNA, etc. Establishment of forest reserves, national parks, protected areas and on farm conservation of valuable plant varieties is being promoted to facilitate their in-situ conservation.

The Lauraceae are a large family of about 50 genera and over 2500 species, with a mainly pantropical distribution. Within Australia, there are 8 genera and 130 species. One genus (Cassytha, 23 species) consists of virtually leafless semiparasitic lianes. The others are leafy trees or shrubs, confined mainly to forest communities. This book provides, for the first time, a complete description and illustration of the venation and cuticle characters of the leafy members of the family of Australia. The Lauraceae are strongly represented in suites of fossil leaves from the early (Eocene) and Middle (Miocene) Tertiary of Australia. Many of these fossils are currently unnamed, and this book should provide a most useful tool for palaeobotanists wishing to place fossils in context with modern taxa. The book provides an independent suite of characters that will complement the descriptions of the gross morphology and reproductive structures of the family in Flora of Australia Volume 2.