Customer Reviews (2)

The Red Headed Stranger
I would like to review this chapte

The Red Headed Stranger
I would like to review this chapte ... Read more

Product Description
Introduction to Plant Physiology became the best-selling first edition plant physiology text of the 1990's! Now, we're building on the success of prior editions to provide an even more effective fourth edition. Plant Physiology has been praised for its excellent balance of traditional and modern topics, presented in a straightforward style, without overwhelming undergraduates with excessive detail. Its focus is on the ideas and experimental approaches in plant physiology. This is a one-semester course. It assumes that the student has had introductory biology or botany as a pre-requisite. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Nice Book
This book has a lot of really great information. I am keeping it even though the class is over. The only thing that I would improve would be the figures. The sketches (not the photos) are done in kind of bland colors (faded out blues, greens, and grays). There is not very much contrast between the colors, which can make it difficult to distinguish between different portions of the figures when trying to mentally visualize them. (Probably only important if you are a visual person that really likes charts, graphs, and schematics.)

Excellently written & easy to understand
For a simple explanation of some very complex topics, I have found William Hopkins' text much more useful than the Taiz.Taiz was assigned for my class, but I have turned to the Hopkins, which was in the university library.With Hopkins, each sentence flows into the next and it is much easier to follow.Also, Hopkins is more up to date when mentioning current research. I wish I had bought the Hopkins...

I haven't come across so many typos to be disturbed by them. It is strange that the Hopkins' text was not edited for the typos, while Taiz's was not edited for readability...

cheaply done - numerous errors compromise its usefulness - go with Taiz & Zeiger
I cannot recommend this textbook. Its basic premise is misguided. It seems to be aiming squarely between the level of presentation in a basic botany course and a true plant physiology course. This is not an advisable half-step -- it winds up being nothing more than a protracted review of basic botany, not the opening up of a new field of study.

Its flawed premise aside, the usefulness of this book on any level is compromised by its errors. Factual errors abound -- these aren't just matters of scientific dispute, they're flat-out errors in fact. For example, the overview of the C4 syndrome consistently shows that they phosphorylation of pyruvate to PEP produces ATP, when in fact it consumes ATP. (Furthermore, it insists that 2 ATP are involved, which is supported neither by the stoichiometry nor other sources I consulted.) The stromal hexose-P pool in the diagram for the PCR (Calvin) cycle is misplaced. The table showing the stoichiometry for the same cycle is an unhelpful oversimplification -- showing only the Rubisco and carbon dioxide and ignoring the inputs and outputs of water, phosphates, electron acceptors, and hydronium ion. The diagram for the citric acid cycle does not reflect the inputs of water, which is not only confusing, it is also misleading about the basic requirements for the physiological process of respiration. The diagram for a stoma and guard cells is inadequately labeled when viewed alongside the text, and detailed examples of the less well-known graminoid stomata are absent.

The function of enzymes is all-important in this subject, and this book only mentions them in the text proper, never including them in the diagrams and tables. For example, if took a dedicated search to find the fleeting mention in the text of the important role of malic enzyme in C4 and CAM photosynthesis. In order to get through this book, I had to cross-reference continuously with Taiz and Zeiger's better book on Plant Physiology, and the book on basic botany by Raven, Evert, and Eichhorn.

Taiz and Zeiger do a far better job all around. Enzymes are consistently presented -- right alongside the reactions -- in tables summarizing physiological processes. For most processes, the Lewis diagrams of the chemicals involved are usually presented -- this is a form of illustration that can help in understanding the processes, serve as a gentle prod in recalling one's organic chemistry. So even if the level of instruction doesn't require memorizing formulas or structures, these diagrams help in learning the material. If you are even a mildly inquisitive reader you're going to be continuously puzzled by the Hopkins book, unless you have other sources to consult.

The book is 100 pages shorter and 10 bucks more expensive than Taiz and Zeiger. T&Z are now in its third edition and using full-color, whereas Hopkins is only 2-color. Furthermore, T&Z have a nice web site, and this book has no ancillary material available. I read that their editor for the ancillar materials bagged out at the last minute, so the publishers were obviously cheapskates and didn't see to it that the job got done.

Taiz and Zeiger, however, are between editions -- the 4th edition is due out in June 2006. So you may want to hold off and get that. The 3rd edition of T&Z can be had for about $50, and the 2nd edition of 1998 (2 color) for $25. The 2nd edition is great, but the many advances made since 1998 are obviously not reflected.

a bad textbook to learn plant phys
This is an introductory book, so I do not expect it to go in-depth in each area. There are many typos in this book though, like a lot of page numbers in the index are not correct. Also, the book goes in an odd order, and a lot of things explained later in the book wouldv'e made it easier to understand some of the earlier things easier. a lot of newer concepts are left out too, or vaguely mentioned, like electric currents in plants. My professor often has to use graphs and charts from other books because the ones from the book are too complicated or hard to understand, such as the Z-scheme, the Q cycle, and the PCR cycle to name a few. I would not recommend this book as an introductory textbook.

introduction of plant physiology
1.Why IBA biosynthetic doesn't appear inside this book?
2.Does IBA biosynthetic discovered yet?
I think it would be better if IBA biosinthetic can be described in this book.
I'm waiting your answer
thank you very much

Semarang Indonesia
rudi ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Somewhat Interesting...
This is a complete bibliography of Nolan up to 1990, and I mean complete. It is a checklist for everything Nolan has written, including all newspaper and magazine stories, non-fiction and essays. Obviously I was only interested in the books, and short story sections. There was also a biography that I enjoyed reading to gain some info on the man, but as a whole there was only about 25% of this book that appealed to me. I wouldn't recommend this book as it's more a bibliographical checklist rather than a biography. Still I found it interesting. ... Read more

Product Description
Twenty-one stories of the everyday doings of Little John around the farm: fetching water, grinding corn, making cider, growing wheat, boiling maple syrup, and so on. Numerous black and white illustrations enliven the text. First volume in a series of a stories created by a father to induce a certain little boy to go to sleep. For nearly three years his one listener heard them repeated many times, and his interest never flagged. As the farm stories slowly grew in number, eventually to fill two volumes, they entirely displaced the other stories, and that farm became as real in the mind of his listener as it was in fact when little John was driving the cows or planting the corn in the early part of the nineteenth century. Later came two more volumes about a ship and its voyages at sea, and a final volume on house building. Ideal for ages 5 to 7. ... Read more

Product Description
Twenty-one more stories about Little John working and playing on the farm, engaged in such activities as tending animals, growing corn, and chopping wood, or fishing, skating, and sledding. Second volume in a series of a stories created by a father to induce a certain little boy to go to sleep. For nearly three years his one listener heard them repeated many times, and his interest never flagged. As the farm stories slowly grew in number, eventually to fill two volumes, they entirely displaced the other stories, and that farm became as real in the mind of his listener as it was in fact when little John was driving the cows or planting the corn in the early part of the nineteenth century. Later came two more volumes about a ship and its voyages at sea, and a final volume on house building. Ideal for ages 5 to 7. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1898.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Boston : L. C. PageNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company; Publication date: 1916; Subjects: LawAmerican literature; Law / Intellectual Property / General; Law / Intellectual Property / Copyright; Literary Collections / American / General; Literary Criticism / American / General; Music / Reference; ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin ; Cambridge : Riverside PressPublication date: 1922Subjects: WhalingNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more