The Monocotyledoneae

Cat-tails to Orchids

E. Lucy Braun. With Gramineae by Clara G. Weishaupt. Original drawings by Elizabeth Dalvé and Elizabeth King

“The book is technically astute but will enjoy wide use among amateur botanists and naturalists of all inclinations. This book, along with Braun’s Woody Plants of Ohio (Ohio State University Press 1961), describes and illustrates more than one quarter of the plants in Ohio's native and naturalized flora. Serious naturalists will own these books and should see that every junior high and high school library has them on its shelves as well.” —The Explorer

This volume contains taxonomic descriptions of all native or naturalized species of the monocots that occur in Ohio, or that did occur within the period represented by Ohio herbaria. Many local adventive species and garden escapes are also included, and mention is made of many ornamentals and of food plants and others of economic importance. Over 650 species of monocots are recognized in the Ohio flora, and many varieties and a number of forms and hybrids swell this number to over 700 taxa.

The introduction provides a discussion of the correlation of species-ranges with physical features of the environment, and with glacial migrations. It suggests problems in population-variation, hybridization, and introgression.

In preparing the Systematic Text itself, Professor Braun has kept two principal objectives in mind: (1) completeness and accuracy, and (2) usability, not only by the student or botanist, but also by the amateur and the fieldworker in any of the natural sciences. She defines the less familiar technical terms where they are used, and employs gross characters wherever these suffice, resorting to more minute features where these only can be relied on for species-determination. In many places in the text, mention is made of more or less familiar garden or greenhouse plants related to the Ohio species under consideration; and non-taxonomic information is often added when this adds to the interest of the plants or stimulates field observation. Professor Braun attempts to answer the questions: What is it? Where is it? How can I identify it? How can I recognize it in the field?

Accompanying the Systematic Text are 124 full-page line-cut illustrations of the species described, and maps indicating the Ohio distribution of all native species are provided.

E. Lucy Braun is professor emeritus of plan ecology at the University of Cincinnati, and the author of Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America and The Woody Plants of Ohio. Clara G. Weishaupt, who prepared the text of the Gramineae, is associate professor of botany and plant pathology at The Ohio State University, and the author of Vascular Plants of Ohio.