David J. Mabberley is an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, University of Oxford. He was consecutively Director of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens, Seattle; Keeper of the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London; and Executive Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. He is Professor Extraordinary at Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands; Adjunct Professor, Macquarie University Sydney; and Honorary Research Associate, National Herbarium of New South Wales, Sydney. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Burbidge Medal 'for services to Australian plant systematics' from the Australian Systematic Botany Society (2003); the Cuatrecasas Medal 'for excellence in tropical botany' from the Smithsonian Institution (2004); the Peter H. Raven Award 'for exceptional contributions to scientific outreach' from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (2004); the Linnean Medal for Botany from the Linnean Society of London (2006); and the Robert Allerton Award for Excellence in Tropical Botany from the National Tropical Botanical Garden (2011). He was also honoured with a Fellowship of the Indian Botanical Society in 2015.

Introduction; How to use this book and get most out of it; The dictionary; Appendix: system for arrangement of extant vascular plants; Acknowledgement of sources: 1. Floras and handbooks, websites; 2. Periodicals; Abbreviations and symbols (used in this book): 1. General; 2. Authors' names; New names used in this book.