Product Description

After the concise and informative descriptions of the structure of grasses and their flowers, there are lists of grasses for various habitats, followed by a key to grasses in flower. It provides excellent scientific illustrations of the major grasses found in the UK and information on the preferred conditions for each grass.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138320 in Books
• Published on: 1992-06-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

About the Author
Charles Edward Hubbard (1900-1980) was an expert on grasses. Prior to his retirement in 1965, he was the Deputy Director of Kew Gardens.

Customer Reviews

Concise overview of major grasses with good illustrations.
This book contains excellent scientific illustrations of the major grasses found in the UK. Descriptions are concise and informative. Information on the preferred conditions for each grass is most helpful in the field. The only critisism is that it does not cover more species.

The best grass ID book ever
I first bought Hubbard's book back in 1997 as an Undergraduate reading Ecology for an assignment involving the identification of grasses. On first impression the book seems quite daunting with it's black and white drawings, small text and complex key. However, after actually sitting down and reading the book properly from the start on features used to identify grasses the terminology, keys and drawings become relatively easy to use. The drawings help a lot with identification with accurate drawings of each species features, which is an aspect missing from every other grass related ID book I've used.

The only negatives to the book are:
The small paperback novel type format (a slightly larger more robust version would be better)
There are a couple of mistakes in the key relating to page numbers where the next sequence of features occur (a minor inconvenience as they are on the next page)
Some of the scientific names are now outdated but the currently used names are also in the book and any ecologist/botanist should be using 'Stace' for nomenclature anyway.

If the format of the book could be updated slightly then it really would be the ultimate in grass identification. Even with it's minor flaws I use this book all of the time as a consultant ecologist and have bought another copy to replace the one I recently mislaid.

Grasses v.1: A guide to their structure
This book is the definitive book on grass identification, uses and distribution. It is a little technical but contains a lot of knowledge. An excellent book, weel worth a read.