Flowering Plants
Magnolias to Pitcher Plants
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
cloth, 0-8093-0920-3, $55.00
256 pages, 5 1/2 X 8 1/2, illus.
published March 1981
Botany
Magnolias to Pitcher Plants, the eighth volume devoted to flowering plants in The Illustrated Flora of Illinois series, is the third of seeral volumes treating dicotyledons.
Dicotyledons are those flowering plants that upon germination generally produce a pair of "seed leaves" called cotyledons. Dicots in Illinois far out number the monocots, or single cotyledonous plants. Dicots include such well-known plants as roses, peas, mustards, mints, nightshades, milkweeds, and asters. The two previous volumes featuring dicots are Flowering Plants: Hollies to Loasas and Flowering Plants: Willows to Mustards.
In this volume of the Illustrated Flora, Robert H. Mohlenbrock includes four orders and fifteen families of plants. Because such a small number of families of dicots is found in this work, no overall key to the dicot families is included. For keys to all families of vascular plants in Illinois, Mohlenbrock's companion volume, Vascular Flora of Illinois is recommended.
For the Illustrated Flora of Illinois series, Mohlenbrock has chosen to follow the classification system proposed in synoptical form in 1968 by Robert Thorne, rejecting those of Linnaeus (1753), Cronquist (1968), and Hutchinson (1973). In this volume, he has departed from the Thorne system by recognizing the Nymphaeaceae, Nelumbonaceae, and Cabombaceae as distinct families rather than subfamilies of the Nymphaeaceae.
The orders included in this work are the Annonales, Berberidales, Nymphaeales, and Sarraceniales. The fifteen families that comprise them are generally conceded by most botanists to be among the most primitive living plants in the world today. These orders can be characterized generally as woody in the Annonales (except for the Saururaceae and some Aristolochiaceae), herbaceous in the Berberidales (except for the Menispermaceae and some Berberidaceae), aquatic in the Nymphaeales, and insectivorous in the Sarraceniales.
The nomenclature for the species and lesser taxa in this volume has been chosen after lengthy study of recent floras and monographs. Synonyms, with complete author citation, which have applied to species in the northeastern United States, are given under each species. Each description, while not necessarily intended to be complete, covers the more important features of the species.
As in previous volumes in this series, the common name, or names, is the one used locally in Illinois. The habitat designation is not always the habitat throughout the range of the species but only in Illinois. Ranges have been compiled from various sources, including herbarium material and field studies. Dot maps showing county distribution for each taxon are provided. Each dot represents a voucher speciman deposited in some herbarium.
Each species is illustrated, depicting the habitat and distinguishing features. Because of the scientific exactitude and practical usefulness of this distinguished series, the eighth volume devoted to flowering plants--ninth volume in thd series--will find a welcome place in reference collections and in the field.
Robert H. Mohlenbrock taught botany at Southern Illinois University Carbondale for thirty-four years, earning the title of Distinguished Professor. After his retirement in 1990, he joined Biotic Consultants as a senior scientist teaching wetland identification classes in twenty-six states to date. Mohlenbrock has been named SIU Outstanding Scholar and has received the SIU Alumnus Teacher of the Year Award, the AMOCO Outstanding Teacher Award, and the Meritorious Teacher of the Year Award from the Association of Southeastern Biologists. Since 1984, he has been a monthly columnist for Natural History magazine. Among his fifty books and more than five hundred and sixty publications are Macmillan's Field Guide to the U.S. National Forests, and Where Have All the Wildflowers Gone?
