Publisher's Synopsis
The second of five volumes covering the monocots in North America north of Mexico, this volume features some of the most spectacular and showy native and naturalized species including orchids, lilies, irises, trilliums, hymenocallises, alliums, hostas, tulips, erythroniums, agaves, and yuccas. Plants representing eleven families following Cronquist's classification are in this work. The genus containing onions, garlic, and chives--Allium--is represented in the flora by almost 100 native and naturalized species. The Chicago native, Thismia americana, is one of five species in three genera of the mostly tropical Burmanniaceae, included in the volume, and four families (Aloaceae, Stmonaceae, Smilacaceae, and Dioscoreaceae) are each represented by single genera. With 112 illustrations and 1,138 individual species distribution maps, this thorough volume has identification keys, summaries of habitats and geographic ranges, distribution maps, pertinent synonymies, descriptions, chromosome numbers, phenological information, and other significant biological observations for each species.
