J. G. Hawkes

Nigel Maxted

B.V. Ford-Lloyd

It is a distressing truism that the human race during the last millennium has caused the exponential loss of plant genetic diversity throughout the world. This has had direct and negative economic, political and social consequences for the human race, which at the same time has failed to exploit fully the positive benefits that might result from conserving and exploiting the world's plant genetic resources. However, a strong movement to halt this loss of plant diversity and enhance its utilisation for the benefit of all humanity has been underway since the 1960's (Frankel and Bennett, 1970; Frankel and Hawkes, 1975). This initiative was taken up by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) that not only expounds the need to conserve biological diversity but links conservation to exploitation and development for the benefit of all. Article 8 of the Convention clearly states the need to develop more effective and efficient guidelines to conserve biological diversity, while Article 9, along with the FAO International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, promotes the adoption of a complementary approach to conservation that incorporates both ex situ and in situ techniques.

The Ex Situ Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources

Reproductive Biology and Taxonomy of Vascular Plants is a collection of papers presented at the Conference on Reproductive Biology and Taxonomy of Vascular Plants, held at the Department of Botany, University of Birmingham on April 23-25, 1965. The conference primarily explores the reproductive biology of flowering plants and ferns to arrive at a better understanding of variation patterns and modes of evolution. This book is divided into six chapters and begins with a discussion on the breeding systems, variation and adaptation. The next chapters survey the practical implications of knowledge of breeding systems and other aspects of the reproductive biology of flowering plants, as well as the pollination mechanisms in orchids and the evolution of this family in relation to insect evolution. These chapters include an account of the foraging behavior of honey bees and its importance to the botanist in delineating the behavior of the insects that pollinate the plants. Other chapters deal with the mechanisms of plant dispersal and establishment, the aspects of seed dormancy, and germination and reproductive capacity related to evolutionary processes. The concluding chapters explore the many aspects of apomixis in its wider sense and survey how the variation patterns of apomicts were due to this special mode of reproduction. This book is directed primarily to botanists.

J. G. Hawkes

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