A handy guide to "green things" written by two of our leading botanists and illustrated by a third.

Identification is by means of "single access" keys, ie a code is first worked out based on various character staes and this is then looked up in the list. The problem with this approach is that if you can’t decide about an early character, it’s quite diffcult to continue. Anyway, keys are given to: grasses in flower, grasses in vegetative state, sedges, rushes and wood-rushes, pinnate ferns.

The species accounts follow the keys. These consist of descriptions on the left, with large line drawings of important floral parts in the margin, facing rather beautiful colour paintings of the plants.

Two appendices present an overview of Festuca ovina agg. and recent name changes to Carex flava agg. (which have since been accepted). A glossary, distribution maps, further reading and indexes completes the work.