This publication is the first of its kind for the region and aims to introduce users to the extent of our flora by providing accounts of all 242 currently recognised, indigenous and naturalised, flowering plant families in the southern Africa region. Getting to know such a large flora is a daunting task and one of the first steps in plant identification is to know which family they belong to. Included in the book are: a pictorial introductory guide to plant families, complete accounts of all flowering plant families of southern Africa introducing users to well-known and lesser-known families, species richness maps for each family, a diagnostic page for each family consisting of photographs depicting their diagnostic characters, representative species for each family (± 4500 images), and images of many lesser-known species that have never been published before. This totals over 800 pages filled with botanical information. It is a standard reference work on the flowering plant families of southern Africa and is intended for everyone interested in plants.