Webbs An Irish Flora

John Parnell and Tom Curtis with illustrations by Elaine Cullen

Publication Year: 2012

This handbook will provide the reader with a clear and reliable means of identifying those plants which grow wild in Ireland. This book is a comprehensive re-working of the classic and standard Flora of Ireland which was last published 16 years ago: this will be the eighth edition of that work. It has been brought fully up to date through incorporating the latest in botanical research and it reflects contemporary and modern approaches to plant classification based on recent advances in genetics. Trees, shrubs and climbers in winter are now covered for the first time. Also included is a list of plants that have legal protection in Ireland. Webb’s an Irish Flora is illustrated throughout with hand-coloured drawings. This handy reference book for botanists both amateur and professional, gardeners, hill walkers, students, farmers and naturalists. It is about the higher plants that grow wild and which are commonly naturalised or otherwise encountered in Ireland. It is designed to help you identify and provide you with background information on plant morphology, distribution and rarity and to educate all those interested in recognising the species of the flora of Ireland. Previous editions of the book have been used by workers outside of the specific field of study of plant identification – such as environmental consultants, the general public, students, professional and amateur botanists etc. There is a genuine demand for a Flora whose subject matter refers explicitly to Ireland whilst placing that flora in a wider context. Furthermore, a concise flora of a discrete geographical area is of interest internationally to many professional and amateur botanists and gardeners. The book has, is and will be used in student training (it is used as a basic botanical text book in some Universities in Ireland) and on training courses for professionals wishing to improve their skills and for all those needing to improve their levels of botanical expertise.

Published by: Cork University Press

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The aim of this book is to provide all those interested with a clear and reliable means of identifying higher plants that grow wild in Ireland, and to provide it in a compact format and at a price that is reasonable. The descriptions have, therefore, been made as brief as is consistent with clarity, and as non- technical as is...

HOW AND WHERE TO LOOK FOR PLANTS

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pp. xiii-xvi

The best way for the beginner to learn how to find interesting plants and how to identify them is to go out on field excursions with a more expert friend. There are a large number of recognition points which are almost impossible to explain in books, but which can be taught in five minutes with the plants in one’s hand...

CONSERVATION AND LEGAL PROTECTION

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pp. xvii-xxi

Like so many plants and animals throughout the planet, wild plants face threats from many sources ranging from habitat destruction through changes in land management to collection. The pressures on plants in Ireland are definitely not as intense as elsewhere; they are especially acute in tropical areas, where the clearance of an area of...

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

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pp. xxii-xxiv

The keys are devices to enable you to find your way as quickly as possible to the description that applies to the plant under consideration. They consist of a series of statements arranged in pairs, the statements of each pair being mutually contradictory, so that, as descriptions of a given plant, one of them must be true...

NOTES ON THE TEXT

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pp. xxv-xxvii

Overall there are 118 families included in this edition – a reduction from the 132 of the previous edition – though the number of species and subspecies included has risen to 1543. Those printed in bold-face type are accounted for in the keys. The remaining species and hybrids, which are mostly difficult to discriminate or...

GENERAL KEY TO FAMILIES OR GENERA

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pp. xxviii-xlv

KEY TO TREES, LARGE SHRUBS AND CLIMBERS IN WINTER

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pp. xlvi-lii

In many plants the winter twigs bear, along their length, small buds with immediately below each a crescent-moon-shaped scar. The scar represents the former point of attachment of the now-shed leaf. These scars, and the dots or lines on them (which are the remnants of the veins or conducting tissue), are often...

AUTHORSHIP OF FAMILIES

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pp. liii-lvi

DESCRIPTIONS OF FAMILIES, GENERA AND SPECIES

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pp. 1-434

Plants without flowers, producing spores, not seeds and with leaves virtually always (always in Irish species) containing only a single, unbranched vein. The spores are all similar in the Lycopodiaceae, but in the Selaginellaceae and Isoetaceae they are differentiated into large megaspores and much smaller...

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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pp. 435-438

GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS

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pp. 439-452

GLOSSARY OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES

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pp. 453-463

INDEX TO IRISH NAMES

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pp. 465-468

INDEX TO SCIENTIFIC NAMES AND AUTHORITIES

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pp. 469-495

INDEX TO COMMON ENGLISH NAMES

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pp. 496-504

Back Cover

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E-ISBN-13: 9781909005082
E-ISBN-10: 1909005088
Print-ISBN-13: 9781859184783
Print-ISBN-10: 1859184782

Page Count: 560
Illustrations: 118
Publication Year: 2012

Edition: 8