Grevillea

"Grevillea" is the third-largest Australian flowering-plant genus, with over 250 species occurring in nearly all parts of the continent, and a few species extending to Indonesia, New Guinea and New Caledonia.

The genus is varied and many species have beautiful or spectacular flowers, ranging from the delicate white of (the almost extinct) G. "scapigera" to the vibrant red of the tropical G. "dryandri". The silky oak, G. "robusta", is a sought-after cabinet timber, and is an increasingly important agroforestry tree in many developing countries.

Grevillea are also popular in horticulture; in addition to the wild species, hundreds of artifical hybrids and cultivars have been developed.

This book claims to be first definitive scientific survey of "Grevillea" for over a hundred years and aims to fill a major gap in the scientific literature on Australia's flora.

The characteristics of all species are listed in detail, and 53 new species and 34 new subspecies are fully treated for the first time.

There are notes on distribution and ecology, and all previous uses of names in "Grevillea" are presented in a comprehensive review of their status. Features include the "Identification Key", a convenient step-by-step way to identify any wild species.

The arrangements of the key, and the accompanying diagrams and glossary, make it suitable for specialist and interested amateur alike.

A forester by training, Don McGillivray became interested in plant taxonomy and transferred in 1964 to the national Herbarium of New South Wales at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, where he worked extensively on Proteaceae, among other plant families.

Bob Makinson, the editor and compiler of this text, has worked on the taxonomy of Grevillea, among other groups, since 1981.

He is currently Curator of the Herbarium at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra.