Papers by Vernon H Heywood (1927-2022)
The Flora Europaea organisation List of contributors Preface Introduction List of basic and stand... more The Flora Europaea organisation List of contributors Preface Introduction List of basic and standard floras Synopsis of families Key to families of angiospermae Explanatory notes on the text Text Appendices Index Maps.
Plant Diversity, 2019
As an introduction to the Special Issue on the restoration of threatened plant species and their ... more As an introduction to the Special Issue on the restoration of threatened plant species and their habitats, this editorial shows how the various papers in the issue address the range of in situ interventions involved in species population management and restoration of their habitat, together with examples of case studies implementing these actions. It stresses the need for integrating these various interventions. It highlights the importance of protected areas in providing a degree of protection for threatened species but also the need to complement this with actions at the species level to ensure the effective conservation and long term persistence of these species. It emphasizes that ecological restoration is a complement to, not a substitute for conservation, and that the balance of effort and allocation of resources between them is a key issue.
Plant Diversity, 2017
Despite the massive efforts that have been made to conserve plant diversity across the world duri... more Despite the massive efforts that have been made to conserve plant diversity across the world during the past few decades, it is becoming increasingly evident that our current strategies are not sufficiently effective to prevent the continuing decline in biodiversity. As a recent report by the CBD indicates, current progress and commitments are insufficient to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets by 2020. Threatened species lists continue to grow while the world's governments fail to meet biodiversity conservation goals. Clearly, we are failing in our attempts to conserve biodiversity on a sufficient scale. The reasons for this situation are complex, including scientific, technical, sociological, economic and political factors. The conservation community is divided about how to respond. Some believe that saving all existing biodiversity is still an achievable goal. On the other hand, there are those who believe that we need to accept that biodiversity will inevitably continue to be lost, despite all our conservation actions and that we must focus on what to save, why and where. It has also been suggested that we need a new approach to conservation in the face of the challenges posed by the Anthropocene biosphere which we now inhabit. Whatever view one holds on the above issues, it is clear that we need to review the effectiveness of our current conservation strategies, identify the limiting factors that are preventing the Aichi goals being met and at the same time take whatever steps are necessary to make our conservation protocols more explicit, operational and efficient so as to achieve the maximum conservation effect. This paper addresses the key issues that underlie our failure to meet agreed targets and discusses the necessary changes to our conservation approaches. While we can justifiably be proud of our many achievements and successes in plant conservation in the past 30 years, which have helped slow the rate of loss, unless we devise a more coherent, consistent and integrated global strategy in which both the effectiveness and limitations of our current policies, action plans and procedures are recognized, and reflect this in national strategies, and then embark on a much bolder and ambitious set of actions, progress will be limited and plant diversity will continue to decline.
In terms of their land area, many islands contain a disproportionate number of taxa for certain g... more In terms of their land area, many islands contain a disproportionate number of taxa for certain groups of organisms. Thus the IUCN/WWF Centres of Plant Diversity project, which identifies 234 first order sites that are globally most important from a botanical point of view, includes a considerable proportion of islands, and in Conservation International’s Hotspot programme, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands, the Philippines, and the Caribbean are identified as three of the five “hottest of the hotspots”. Priority for conservation action is often assumed for islands because of the often dramatic losses already suffered and the serious level of threats to which plant or animal populations are subjected, largely as a result of direct or indirect human action. The practicalities of conservation are not, however, straightforward in many cases. In the conservation of island hotspots of biodiversity, in addition to the many scientific and technical issues involved, political, financi...
The Mediterranean region houses ssome 25-30000 species of vascular plants and the herbarium colle... more The Mediterranean region houses ssome 25-30000 species of vascular plants and the herbarium collections that have been made of this flora are widely scattered not only in institutions within the region but important collections may be found in herbaria in non-Mediterranean Europe and other parts of the world, reflecting the range of botanists who have been involved in the study of the flora of this area. These herbaria range trom major world class institutions with severa I million specimens to small barely adeguate collections of the local flora. Most floristic work is undertaken today on a national basis and it is a mater of concern that National herbaria in several countries of the region are small and poorly supported. On the other hand, much of the floristic exploration and taxonomic studies on Mediterranean plants has been carri ed out by botanists foreign to the region, both professional and amateur. AIso, a number of major Floras has been written by botanists from outside th...
Vernon HeywoodInterest in the conservation of wild relatives of cultivated plants has increased c... more Vernon HeywoodInterest in the conservation of wild relatives of cultivated plants has increased considerably in recentyears and is recognized as one of the priority activities of the Leipzig Global Plan of Action. Wild relativeshave contributed to the improvement of most crop plants and are used mostly as sources of desirable genes aswell as in research relating to crop improvement.Although not often thought of as a major center of crop diversity, the European continent harbors richwild gene pools of many crop species. These include: cereals, particularly oats (Avena) and rye (Secale); foodlegumes such as pea ( Pisum) and lupins (Lupinus); fruit crops, such as apple ( Malus), pear (Pyrus), plums andcherries (Prunus), grape vine (Vitis), raspberries and blackberries (Rubus), olive (Olea) and fig (Ficus); veg-etables—including lettuce ( Lactuca), carrot ( Daucus), parsnip ( Pastinaca ), cabbage and other brassicas ( Bras-sica), beet (Beta), celery, celeriac (Apium), leek (Allium), asp...
SIDALC - Servicio de Informacion y Documentacion Agropecuaria de las Americas.
Plant Diversity
Against a background of continuing loss of biodiversity, it is argued that for the successful con... more Against a background of continuing loss of biodiversity, it is argued that for the successful conservation of threatened plant species we need to ensure the more effective integration of the various conservation actions employed, clarify the wording of the CBD targets and provide clearer operational guidance as to how they are to be implemented and their implementation monitored. The role and effectiveness of protected areas in conserving biodiversity and in particular plant species in situ are discussed as are recent proposals for a massive increase of their extent. The need for much greater effort and investment in the conservation or protection of threatened species outside protected areas where most plant diversity occurs is highlighted. The difficulties involved in implementing effective in situ conservation of plant diversity both at an area-and species/population-based level are discussed. The widespread neglect of species recovery for plants is noted and the desirability of making a clearer distinction between species recovery and reintroduction is emphasized. Key messages from a global overview of species recovery are outlined and recommendations made, including the desirability of each country preparing a national species recovery strategy. The projected impacts of global change on protected areas and on species conservation and recovery, and ways of addressing them are discussed.
The text of this book is printed on Cycle Paper 100/300 gsm made from FSC Recycled Certified pape... more The text of this book is printed on Cycle Paper 100/300 gsm made from FSC Recycled Certified paper (wood fibre from well-managed forests certified in accordance with the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)). The designation of geographical entities in this book, and the presentation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of IUCN. This publication has been made possible in part by funding from MAVA Foundation.
… aspects of biodiversity and innovative utilization, 2002
Page 35. The Conservation of Genetic and Chemical Diversity in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants VERN... more Page 35. The Conservation of Genetic and Chemical Diversity in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants VERNON H. HEYWOOD Centre for Plant Diversity & Systematics, School of Plant Sciences, The University of Reading, Reading ...
Worldwide there are many thousands of species of higher plants which are used by man and can ther... more Worldwide there are many thousands of species of higher plants which are used by man and can therefore be considered resources (Heywood 1991). About 5,000 species have been cultivated at one time or another and there are many more which are harvested or used directly from the wild. As an illustration of this, the Plant Resources Project of South-East Asia records over 8,000 species in its basic list of species used by mankind in that area (Lemmens et al., 1989) and assuming similar percentages of the floras of other tropical regions are similarly employed, then we can extrapolate to a figure of 25–30,000 species for the tropics as a whole. In addition several thousand species are used by Man in the temperate regions of the world. Up to 25,000 species have been used in herbal medicines and many thousand species of ornamentals are grown in parks and in public and private gardens and as street trees.
Sibbaldia: the International Journal of Botanic Garden Horticulture
Si bba l di a gu e St e SSaY Professor Vernon heywood, emeritus Professor of botany at the univer... more Si bba l di a gu e St e SSaY Professor Vernon heywood, emeritus Professor of botany at the university of reading, has had a long and distinguished career in plant taxonomy and systematics and has trained generations of students who now occupy senior positions in many parts of the world. he is a graduate of the universities of edinburgh (bSc, dSc), where he was taught botany at the royal botanic garden edinburgh under Professor Sir William Wright Smith, and cambridge (Phd). his publications include the bestselling Flowering Plants of the World and its successor, Flowering Plant Families of the World, and Principles of Angiosperm Taxonomy co-authored with Peter davis which for decades was the leading text in the field. in addition he has worked extensively on biodiversity and conservation issues in many parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean, indian sub-continent and the neo-tropics. he was senior consultant to the uK overseas development administration (oda/dfic) on the building and equipment of a new national herbarium in dhaka, bangladesh and a staff training and development programme. during the past 20 years he has been especially concerned with developing strategies for the conservation of germplasm of wild species of economic importance, including the wild relatives of crop plants and medicinal and aromatic plants. he has been closely involved with botanic gardens throughout his career and was the founder director of the botanic gardens conservation Secretariat (later botanic gardens conservation international). during a period at iucn, as chief Scientist, he was responsible for developing a plant conservation programme and directed projects on centres of plant diversity, extinction rates in tropical forests, species reactions to global change, medicinal plant conservation and wild relatives of crop species. he coordinated and edited the uneP global biodiversity assessment, involving the collaboration of hundreds of scientists. he has served as a consultant for numerous agencies such as the World bank inspection Panel, undP, uneP, fao and biodiversity international, and has advised governments, ministries, universities and ngos in many parts of the world, including bangladesh,
Biological Conservation, 2003
... Review. Plant conservation: old problems, new perspectives. Vernon H Heywood a , José M Irion... more ... Review. Plant conservation: old problems, new perspectives. Vernon H Heywood a , José M Iriondo b , Corresponding Author Contact Information , E-mail The Corresponding Author. a, Centre for Plant Diversity and Systematics ...
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Papers by Vernon H Heywood (1927-2022)