Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Illustrated Dictionary of Orchid Genera

A comprehensive and extensively illustrated account of orchid genera to date. Its concise entries provide details of nomenclature, classification, original publication, etymology, and geographic range, along with a brief description and color images of representative flowers.

The dictionary describes not only all of the 850 orchid genera that are recognized today but also those genera known only from fossil records, published before Linnaeus, validly published (but not accepted), and invalidly published according to the standards of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, as well as those that have variant names or spellings. In addition to the alphabetic entries, this dictionary includes an introduction to orchid biology, a glossary, a list of taxonomists credited with publishing new orchid genera, key references and bibliographical abbreviation list, and the governing nomenclature rules. The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Illustrated Dictionary of Orchid Genera also features a Foreword by Peter H. Raven and an Introduction on the biology of orchids by David Benzing that describes the August 2007 discovery of the world’s oldest unequivically orchidaceous fossil.