Plant Geography

Originally published in 1975 and in a second edition in 1980, Plant Geography was the first text in biogeography that provided an adequate treatment of modern plant population theory. It is an introduction to the subject for students of both geography and biology. The author develops a series of plant geographic concepts that are based primarily in plant population biology, treating in turn processes that operate at the level of the individual plant and the plant population; interactions between plant populations; environmental conditions and plant dissemination in shaping plant species’ distributions, and the geography of vegetation. Emphasis throughout is placed upon the dynamic nature of the earth’s plant cover, and the interplay between contemporary conditions and historical events in shaping plant distributions and evolution.

Martin Kellman is Professor Emeritus of Geography at York University, Toronto, Canada. His main research focus has been on tropical vegetation and soils, with an emphasis upon reconciling contemporary processes and historical records. Tropical Environments (1997) and available from Routledge summarizes much of this work.