Book excerpt: To be published in 30 volumes, Flora of North America represents the first and only comprehensive taxonomic guide to the extraordinary diversity of plant life blanketing our continent north of Mexico. The collaborative effort of more than 30 major U.S. and Canadian botanical institutions, this ground-breaking scholarly series revises and synthesizes literally thousands of floristic monographs and regional floras published over the last three centuries. In addition, this series distills the original herbarium, laboratory, and field work of hundreds of contributors -- all of them leading botanists and taxonomic authorities who have joined forces to develop this century's premier tool for identifying, understanding, and conserving North America's priceless floristic heritage. Concise, easy to use, and beautifully bound and illustrated, Flora of North America is an indispensable working resource for botanists, conservationists, ecologists, agronomists, foresters, range and land managers, horticulturists -- anyone with a series interest in the distribution, habitat, morphology, and survival of the wide-ranging plant life around us. New lower price! The list price of all volumes in the Flora of North America series have now been reduced to $95 (from $120)