“It represents the book you wished was available for all regions, look for in the library but can never find, or the one that you dream of writing but never do.”
-S. Bridgewater, Edinburgh Journal of Botany

The Venezuelan Guayana, the inspiration for the “Lost World” of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is a botanically rich and geologically ancient part of northern South America with a high level of endemism (22.7% at the species level). The area is dominated by massive table-top mountains, or tepuis, that tower over the surrounding rain forest and savannas and provide a wealth of habitats for nearly 10,000 species of vascular plants.

Volume 8, Poaceae-Rubiaceae, continues the alphabetical sequence of family treatments begun in Volume 2, which treated ferns and their allies and the first 11 families of seed plants. Keys, descriptions, and illustrations of more than half of the species treated - a feature rarely found in floras of even more familiar areas - make this work an enduring reference that will be useful well beyond the borders of the vast region covered by the flora.

The current volume contains treatments of 17 families of seed plants, arranged alphabetically from Poaceae through Rubiaceae. Within those families are treated 244 genera and 1248 species. In addition, the volume includes 659 line drawings and endpaper maps.

Families treated in this volume are: Poaceae, Podocarpaceae, Podostemaceae, Polygalaceae, Polygonaceae, Pontederiaceae, Portulacaceae, Primulaceae, Proteaceae, Quiinaceae, Rafflesiaceae, Ranunculaceae, Rapateaceae, Rhamnaceae, Rhizophoraceae, Rosaceae, and Rubiaceae.

Also available: Vegetation and Topographical Maps of the Venezuelan Guayana.