Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants [Paperback]

Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants provides a fresh and long overdue treatment of plant anatomy and morphology for the biology undergraduate of today. Setting aside the traditional plod through the plant taxa, the author adopts a problem-based functional approach, exploring plant diversity as a series of different solutions to the design problems facing plant life on land.Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants provides a fresh and long overdue treatment of plant anatomy and morphology for the biology undergraduate of today. Setting aside the traditional plod through the plant taxa, the author adopts a problem-based functional approach, exploring plant diversity as a series of different solutions to the design problems facing plant life on land.Plant diversity and adaptation. The plant body. Plant behaviour. The first land plants. Patterns and diversity. Sex and dispersal. Gametes, spores, seeds and fruits. Flowers. Evolution and diversity. Trees. Adaptations in forests and jungles. Adaptive growth forms. The limiting physical environment. Competition, herbivory and dispersal. Cultivated plants. Engineered plants. Conclusion...a broad introduction to the biology of land plants... - Biological AbstractsSpringer Book Archives