Flora of the Venezuelan Guyana

密苏里植物园的Julian Steyermark博士将在众多美国和委内瑞拉合作者的帮助下，完成委内瑞拉瓜亚那地区大约8500种开花植物和蕨类植物的描述性清单。瓜亚那是一个砂岩山脉和山谷和平原的地区，横跨亚马逊盆地的北部边缘。这里植物群的丰富性体现在这样一个事实上，即有一半的物种是该地区特有的，在世界上其他任何地方都不为人所知。由于柯南·道尔（Conan Doyle）的小说《失落的世界》（Lost World）而闻名于世，自对这一地区的首次探索以来，无数探险队带回了数千种不同寻常的优秀植物，并在众多出版物中进行了描述。然而，关于这一独特地区的植物区系，还没有出版过一本综合性的著作。通过将所有这些信息汇集到一个完整的帐户中，由此产生的工作将为生态学家、林业家、保护主义者、农业学家、生物地理学家和分类学家提供必不可少的重要参考。它不仅尽可能地包含有关该物种的药用和其他用途的信息，还包括西班牙和印第安部落的名称，而且还将包括近4000幅植物插图，其中大多数以前从未发表过。该文本还将包括识别钥匙、植物习性和生态栖息地注释、海拔范围和委内瑞拉内外的地理分布。由此产生的工作应该是对植物学的杰出贡献。

Dr. Julian Steyermark of the Missouri Botanical Garden, with assistance from numerous U.S. and Venezuelan collaborators, will complete a descriptive inventory of the estimated 8500 species of flowering plants and ferns of the Venezuelan Guayana, a region of sandstone mountains and intervening valleys and plains across the northern rim of the Amazon basin. The richness of this flora is shown by the fact that half the species are endemic to the region, known nowhere else in the world. Since the first explorations of this region, made famous by Conan Doyle's stories of "Lost World," numerous expeditions have brought back thousands of unusual and outstanding plants, described in numerous publications. However, no single comprehensive work on the flora of this unique region has ever been published. By amassing all this information into one complete account, the resulting work will provide an essential and important reference for use by ecologists, foresters, conservationists, agriculturists, biogeographers, and taxonomists. Not only will it contain information, whenever possible, on the medicinal and other uses of the species, as well as inclusion of the Spanish and Indian tribal names, but it will include nearly 4000 illustrations of plants, most of them never previously published. The text will also include keys for identification, notes on plant habit and ecological habitats, elevational ranges, and geographical distributions, both within and beyond Venezuela. The resulting work should be an outstanding contribution to botanical science.