Peter S. Ashton - Böcker

Epiphytes (plants which grow on other plants, not parasitically but for support), comprise more than one-third of the total vascular flora in some tropical forests. Growing within tropical forest canopies, epiphytes are subject to severe environmental constraints, and their diverse adaptations make them a rich resource for studies of water balance, nutrition, reproduction and evolution. This book synthesizes the body of information from research on epiphytes and their relations with other tropical biota, and provides a comprehensive overview of basic functions, life history, evolution, and the place of epiphytes in complex tropical communities. Tropical ecologists and zoologists as well as plant scientists will find this volume a useful guide to research on the twenty-five thousand species of epiphytes which root in the crowns of tropical trees.

The study of flowers provides a unique insight into the biology and evolution of flowering plants as a whole. The comparative study of flowers began in temperate regions and as a consequence most books on flowers are concerned with temperate plants. In contrast, this volume concentrates on tropical flowers which, whilst sharing many of the features seen in temperate flowers, exhibit phenomena which are purely tropical. The first part of the volume deals with general structural and biological features of flowers and shows facets of their diversity. The second part focuses on the flowers of selected tropical plants and emphasizes their structural and biological idiosyncrasies and evolutionary features. New trends in the study of floral evolution and the role of flowers in the study of flowering plant phylogeny are also outlined.