The word ‘aliens’ can be used in many ways, to invoke fear, dislike and fascination. For biologists it is used to indicate organisms that have been introduced by people to new territories. In the British Isles alien plants are common, conspicuous, pestiferous, beautiful, edible – and can be both useful and harmful.
Over the last fifty years, the study of alien plants has progressed from an eccentric hobby, enabling amateur botanists to increase the total of wild plants that they could record, to the full-blown sciences of invasion ecology and alien genetics. Alien species no longer present an optional extra, but must be accepted as an integral part of mainstream botanical investigation. The amount and breadth of data that has been accumulated on alien plants in the British Isles is exceptional. The subject has become familiar both to naturalists and the general public, due to such diverse topics as damage to the environment by Japanese Knotweed and New Zealand Pigmyweed, the attraction of bees and butterflies to cities by such plants as Buddleja, the court cases involving Leylandii hedges, the threats to the purity of our native Bluebell by the mass planting of its Spanish relative, and the cultivation of new sorts of Christmas tree.
In this important addition to the New Naturalist series, Stace and Crawley provide a comprehensive overview of the many plants that have become an integral part of the British wild flora and a unique insight into why alien plants are so important.
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‘One of the greatest New Naturalists of recent times ... a major contribution to British natural history and popular science. A tremendous work on an important subject.’ British Wildlife
Praise for the New Naturalist series:
‘Taken either individually or as a whole, they are one of the proudest achievements of modern publishing’ The Sunday Times
‘The series is an amazing achievement’ The Times Literary Supplement
‘The books are glorious to own’ Independent
Clive Anthony Stace BSc, PhD, DSc graduated from the University of London in 1959 and gained his doctorate at the Natural History Museum, London in 1963. For the next 41 years he carried out research and teaching at the Universities of Manchester and Leicester, where he is now Emeritus Professor of Plant Taxonomy. He was President of the Botanical Society of the British Isles from 1987 to 1989. He has produced about 200 scientific papers and books, including the New Flora of the British Isles (1991). He was elected Honorary Fellow of the Linnean Society in 2004.
Michael John Crawley FRS is an ecologist and Emeritus Professor of Biology at Imperial College London. His research focuses on plant ecology, with particular emphasis on the relationship between plants and their herbivores, and on the way that alien plants modify plant community dynamics. He serves as BSBI vice county recorder for Berkshire and for East Sutherland.
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Book Description Condition: new. (Hardcover, 2015). 2015 1st edition. Hardback issue. 8vo (155 x 223mm). Ppxiv,626. Colour photographs & illustrations, bibliography, decorative end-papers. Green cloth, spine titled in gilt. Fine new copy in dust-wrapper. "In the British Isles alien plants are common. and can be both useful and harmful. Over the last fifty years, the study of alien plants has progressed from an eccentric hobby, enabling amateur botanists to increase the total of wild plants that they could record, to the full-blown sciences of invasion ecology and alien genetics. Alien species no longer present an optional extra, but must be accepted as an integral part of mainstream botanical investigation. The amount and breadth of data that has been accumulated on alien plants in the British Isles is exceptional. The subject has become familiar both to naturalists and the general public, due to such diverse topics as damage to the environment by Japanese Knotweed and New Zealand Pigmyweed, the attraction of bees and butterflies to cities by such plants as Buddleja, the court cases involving Leylandii hedges, the threats to the purity of our native bluebell by the mass planting of its Spanish relative, and the cultivation of new sorts of Christmas tree." PREVIOUS PRICE £65.00. Seller Inventory # 53238
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 18607876-n
Book Description HRD. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # FC-9780007502158
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780007502158
Book Description Condition: New. The word 'aliens' can be used in many ways, to invoke fear, dislike and fascination. For biologists it is used to indicate organisms that have been introduced by people to new territories. In the British Isles alien plants are common, conspicuous, pestiferous, beautiful, edible - and can be both useful and harmful. Series: Collins New Naturalist Library. Num Pages: 640 pages, (approx 200 colour photographs and diagrams), With index. BIC Classification: 1DB; WNP. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 163 x 225 x 46. Weight in Grams: 1502. . 2015. UK ed. Hardcover. . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780007502158
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6666-HCL-9780007502158
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 18607876-n
Book Description HRD. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # FC-9780007502158
Book Description Condition: New. 626, 274 colour + b/w photos, col illus, distribution maps. . HB. NEW. . As a group these plants are common, conspicuous, pestiferous, beautiful, edible, and otherwise useful or harmful. In the British Isles there are very roughly as many species of naturalised or recurrent alien flowering plants as natives and, besides that, there are numerous other less common ones. Many species have been an integral part of our wild flora for such a long time that we can no longer be sure whether they are in fact native or alien.Even some recently discovered species are similarly problematic. Aliens are proving to have such wide interest simply because they cannot be ignored, and because they add diversity to our otherwise rather limited flora. Many of them have profound effects on the environment by competing with native vegetation or by populating empty ground.Others have altered the course of evolution by their genetic interactions with natives. Alien plants in the British Isles, whether they be food-plants or pests, are a major and largely measurable factor in our economy. The two most important features that make alien plants so interesting are that they evolved somewhere else, and that they left behind many (if not all) of their co-evolved species when people moved them to the British Isles.Their genotypes were forged during interactions with a different set of plants, fungi, micro-organisms and animals from those with which they now cohabit, many of which have been left behind in their countries of origin. In contrast, the genotypes of native plant species evolved during an evolutionary history that was spent interacting with the roughly the same set of plants and animals with which they interact today. These two features - uncoupled evolutionary history, and missing herbivores, pollinators and mutualists - make the study of alien plants and their ecological relationships with native vegetation uniquely attractive. [9780007502158]. Seller Inventory # N27410
Book Description Condition: New. The word 'aliens' can be used in many ways, to invoke fear, dislike and fascination. For biologists it is used to indicate organisms that have been introduced by people to new territories. In the British Isles alien plants are common, conspicuous, pestiferous, beautiful, edible - and can be both useful and harmful. Series: Collins New Naturalist Library. Num Pages: 640 pages, (approx 200 colour photographs and diagrams), With index. BIC Classification: 1DB; WNP. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 163 x 225 x 46. Weight in Grams: 1502. . 2015. UK ed. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780007502158