From the Foreword
Umberto Quattrocchi has brought us some amazing and useful works through the various dictionaries that he has compiled. This time it is for two very important plant families the palms and the cycads that are synthesized here in these two volumes. Each entry is fascinating not just for the botany and full nomenclature of the plant species but for all the associated uses, folklore and interactions with other organisms. ...These entries are fascinating glimpses of natural history. ... Botanists, conservationists, ethnobotanists, anthropologists, geographers, bird watchers, naturalists, historians and those of many other disciplines will find these volumes a most valuable and useful resource. It is the sort of book that will be in frequent use in my library.
----- Professor Sir Ghillean Prance FRS, VMH, Former Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Following the same format as Umberto Quattrocchi's highly praised and well-used previous works, The CRC World Dictionary of Palms: Common Names, Scientific Names, Eponyms, Synonyms, and Etymology brings together the vast and scattered literature on palms and cycads to provide better access to information on these economically important plants. Each genus and species has a detailed morphological description and includes a list of synonyms and vernacular names in many languages.
Bibliographies accompany each entry which are comprehensive, up-to-date and multi-lingual. The detailed information for every entry on habitats, economic uses, historical and biographical data, botanical exploration, and linguistics will be useful for any library involved with botany, herbal medicine, pharmacognosy, medicinal and natural product chemistry, ecology, ethnobotany, systematics, general plant science, agriculture or horticulture.
Umberto Quattrocchi is the author of the bestselling CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, winner of the prestigious Hanbury Botanical Garden Award. His most recent multi-volume work, CRC World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants, received strong praise as being "... an unparalleled starting place--a tool of first resort for any thoughtful researcher. Quattrocchi and CRC have delivered a dictionary like no other, a learned finger pointing in the right direction."
--John de la Parra, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, from Economic Botany, Vol. 68, 2014
Umberto Quattrocchi earned his first degree in political science from the University of Palermo. He followed this achievement with an M.D., specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. In 1992, he retired from the practice of medicine to pursue his studies in botany across the world and to serve as a professor of botany at the University of Palermo. Highly prolific, Quattrocchi has numerous political and botanical books and articles to his credit, including those on plants and gardening that have been published in Hortus and The Garden. In 1997, he received the prestigious Hanbury Botanical Garden Award promoted by the Premio Grinzane Cavour for his book Piante Rustiche Tropicali. He received a second Hanbury Award for the bestselling CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names. Quattrocchi is a member of the International Dendrology Society, the Royal Horticultural Society, and the Botanical Society of America. He is an elected Fellow of the world-renowned Linnean Society.
