Description:
Hawaii's Ferns and Fern Allies is the first comprehensive survey of Hawaii's ferns to be published in more than 100 years. The book covers endemic, indigenous, and naturalized ferns and fern allies (including rare and endangered taxa), providing dichotomous keys, basionyms and synonyms, technical descriptions and distributions, a glossary, and statistical information. The author addresses unresolved taxonomic problems and offers suggestions for future research. He includes information from Hawaiian folklore and mythology, describes uses of ferns by native Hawaiians, and updates Hawaiian common names. More than 100 line drawings illustrate all 222 species, varieties, and forms, and some hybrids.
The volume is based on extensive fieldwork, studies of herbarium collections worldwide, and consultations with pteridologists, local ecologists, and collectors. It provides the much-needed scientific basis for a new, worldwide appreciation of Hawaiian ferns and fern allies and for major efforts to protect and conserve them. This well-researched and highly readable book will be enthusiastically received by amateur and professional naturalists, fern enthusiasts, and professional botanists.Brief description: Dr. Daniel D. Palmer (1930-2024), a distinguished dermatologist, authored Hawai'i's Ferns and Fern Allies (2003). An avid field biologist, he published several taxonomic papers on Hawaiian ferns, including reviews of the genera Sadleria and Cibotium. He was author or coauthor of more than twenty newly published names for Hawaiian ferns, including those of seven new taxa.
Review Quotes: "Attractive, useful, and readable.... Highly recommended."