Conifers are known to everyone as a conspicuous kind of evergreen
trees or shrubs that feature prominently in gardens and parks as
well as in many managed forests in the cool to cold temperate
regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Numerous books have been
written about them and continue to appear, mostly with a bias
towards these uses in Europe and North America. This new handbook
of the conifers is departing from this traditional approach in that
it includes all the world's 615 species of conifers, of which
some 200 occur in the tropics. It gives as much information about
these and the Southern Hemisphere conifers as about the better
known species, drawing on research into the taxonomy, biology,
ecology, distribution and uses by the author over nearly 30 years.
The result is a truly encyclopedic work, a true handbook of all the
world's conifers, richly illustrated by the author with his
line drawings and photographs taken from the natural habitats of
the species.
Aljos Farjon is based at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. He is acknowledged as the world's foremost expert on conifer systematics and has published 11 books and more than 50 papers on this subject. He is chairman of IUCN's Conifer Specialist Group since 1995.
