Ferns and Fern Allies of Taiwan - Supplement

About this book

Language: English

A description of all 747 species of ferns and related plants in Taiwan. Taiwan is one of the global diversity centers of pteridophytes (ferns, and plants allied to them) with more than 700 species distributed over an area of 35 800 km².

This book supplement to Ferns and Fern Allies of Taiwan provides an illustrated update to already known and new species of Taiwan and its neighboring smaller islands and islets.

- new species, subspecies and hybrids
- extensively illustrated with a total of more than 560 images
- revised keys for the safe identification of species
- comprehensive background information
- updated recommendations for conservation needs
- distribution and frequency information for new and selected other species
- description of vegetation zones and habitats for new and selected other species
- scientific names accompanied with Chinese name, pinyin transcription and commonly used deviating scientific names
- amended bibliography
- amended index containing synonyms, misapplied names and names in alternative taxonomic combinations

Contents

Foreword         iii
Acknowledgements          iv
1    Corrections    1
2    New taxa       7
3    Other new data
                Alternative taxonomic systems   39
                Comments regarding families and lower ranks    46
                Taxa endemic to Taiwan    75
                Taxa with a singular occurrence in Taiwan  76
                Updates to the distribution of selected taxa        76
                Other comments       78
4    Amendment of references
                Literature          81
                Internet-based resources   84

5    Images
                Images     85
                Sources of images     192
6    Amendment of index
                Amended index to scientific names    195
                Amended index to Chinese names     205
                Amended index to place names 212

Customer Reviews

Biography

Ralf Knapp was born in Eberbach, Germany in 1969, and now lives in Taipei, Taiwan since 1998. More than 14 years ago he came to Taiwan to work in his profession as an electrical engineer for a German company in their Taipei office. After marrying a Taiwanese, he could intensify his studies of Taiwanese pteridophytes and gymnosperms, which he started some 9 years ago. Prior to moving to Taiwan, he had been working on Central European vascular plants, and for some years he was invited to join a program of the Bavarian Ministry of Environmental Protection focusing on monitoring and protection of rare and endemic plants. During his field work in Taiwan he built-up a private herbarium with now more than 5,000 specimen sheets, and an image database of exceeding 200,000.

It has been just two years since the publication of "Ferns and Fern Allies of Taiwan". An enormous amount of data has accumulated since then, from the discovery of taxa new to Taiwan to resolving pending questions raised in the book. The publisher and author have decided to continue with the concept introduced in the book and distribute the additional information in form of this supplement. Hence, book and supplement should be used in conjunction with one another. As already for the book, the central goal of this work is to provide a tool to assist botanists in the correct identification of taxa. Thus, information provided in the book was continuously reviewed which resulted in the modification and improvement of several keys. The majority of data provided in this supplement is derived from the study of recent publications, continued extensive field work and a constructive exchange with other scientists.