Presents the first detailed survey of the forest vegetation of northeast Asia, a vast, mainly boreal or cool-temperate region that includes the Russian Far East (including Kamchatka, Sakhalin and Kuril Islands), Manchuria, northern Korea and Japan. Vegetation descriptions were prepared by local and foreign vegetation scientists, partly from literature sources but also from local field experience, including the several Czech-Slovak botanical expeditions to North Korea during the 1990s. Regional integration is provided in chapters on biogeography and the comparison of vegetation syntaxa.
Acknowledgements.- Preface.- 1: Introduction.- 2: Climate of Northeast Asia.- 3: Basic Geomorphological and Geological Characteristics of Northeast Asia.- 4: Phytogeography of Northeast Asia.- 5: Forest Vegetation of Easternmost Russia (Russian Far East.- 6: Forest Vegetation of Northeast China.- 7: Forest Vegetation of Northern Japan and the Southern Kurils.- 8: Forest Vegetation of the Northern Korean Peninsula.- 9: Vegetation-Environment Relationships Within and Among Selected Natural Forests in North Korea.- 10: Species and Spatial Structure of Forests on the Southeastern Slope of Paektu-San, North Korea.- 11: Comparison of Forest Syntaxa and Types In Northeast Asia.- Index.
From the reviews: "The new volume of Kluwer series Geobotany contains a broad-scale overview of boreal and cool-temperate forest vegetation of the Russian Far East, northeastern China (Manchuria), North Korea and northern Japan. ! the text is supplemented with a number of black-and-white photographs, tables of floristic composition, maps and graphs. ! the book provides a very good introduction to the forest vegetation of the region. Definitely it is a must for both the vegetation scientists working actively in the region and botanists occasionally travelling to Northeast Asia." (Milan Chytru, Folia Geobotanica, Vol. 40 (4), 2005)