Identification of indigenous Cycads of South Africa - Softcover

Hugo, Cornia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0620552077 ISBN 13: 9780620552073

Publisher: Cornia Hugo, 2017

Synopsis

This is a practical easy-to-use guide for the identification of indigenous cycad species of South Africa. The guide was developed with the layman in mind for practical use in the field or garden. The 37 indigenous cycad species of South Africa are divided into six groups according to the leaflet shape, colour, width, margin and flexibility.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Cornia Hugo is currently employed as Assistant Director of General Investigations North at the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. She studied Nature Conservation at Pretoria Technikon in 1986-1987 and did her practical year at Rustenburg Nature Reserve in 1988.
She was appointed as a Nature Conservator by Transvaal Nature Conservation in 1989 and in 1991 became the first woman appointed in Transvaal Nature Conservation's Law Enforcement Section.
In 1997 she was appointed as Chief Nature Conservator in Gauteng Nature Conservation's General Investigations Section, and in 2005 was promoted to her present position of Assistant Director of General Investigations North.
She has been involved in investigations on the illegal trade in indigenous South African cycads and permit inspections related to them since 1991. Although Gauteng Province has only one Encephalartos species left in the veld, numerous cycad collectors and nature lovers have many of the 37 indigenous Encephalartos species in their gardens.
Like a true environmentalist, she has a huge passion for conservation, especially of cycads. It was this passion that led to the publication of this identification book.

From the Inside Flap

Cornia Hugo is well known among cycad enthusiasts, especially in Gauteng, as a capable and strict law enforcement officer of nature conservation. From her experience, over many years, she came to realise the dire need for a user-friendly, brief but effective publication that will enable interested persons to identify the South African cycads and she decided to do something about it - hence the present book.
Writing such a book is no easy matter. For practical purposes, the identifications should be based almost exclusively on plant organs, such as leaves, which are readily available at all times. With the variations that occur within almost all the South African cycad species, this becomes an almost impossible task.
To Cornia this presented itself as a daunting challenge. The key she finally produced is probably the best available at present. With the numerous carefully selected and clear colour photographs that augment the written key it is a very worthy addition to the library of the cycad enthusiasts.
Nat GrobbelaarB.Sc. (Rhodes), M.Sc. (Pretoria), Ph.D. (Cornell, U.S.A.)
Emeritus professor and former Head of the Botany Department of the University of Pretoria.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornia Hugo
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0620552077
• ISBN 13: 9780620552073
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 148