This book discusses the remarkable plant diversity of the Maltese Archipelago. Despite its relatively small area and long-term human exploitation, many different plant communities occur in this territory. The book presents phytosociological investigations, together with taxonomical studies, which have been conducted over more than forty years, highlighting the unique features of this central Mediterranean insular ecosystem. It also describes the phytosociological role played by several narrow endemic or phytogeographically relevant taxa and introduces many phytocoenoses exclusively growing in the archipelago. The study integrates the palaeogeographic issues linked to the ancient and intriguing history of the different civilizations that succeeded on the islands for thousands of years. The book also focuses on the N2000 habitats.

Mediterranean islands exhibit many similarities in their biotic ecological, physical and environmental characteristics. There are also many differences in terms of their human colonization and current anthropogenic pressures. This book addresses in three sections these characteristics and examines the major environmental changes that the islands experienced during the Quaternary period. The first section provides details on natural and cultural factors which have shaped island landscapes. It describes the environmental and cultural changes of the Holocene and their effects on biota, as well as on the current human pressures that are now threats to the sustainability of the island communities. The second section focuses on the landscapes of the largest islands namely Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Cyprus, Crete, Malta and the Balearics. Each island chapter includes a special topic reflecting a particular characteristic of the island. Part three presents strategies for action towards sustainability in Mediterranean islands and concludes with a comparison between the largest islands. Despite several published books on Mediterranean ecosystems/landscapes there is no existing book dealing with Mediterranean islands in a collective manner. Students, researchers and university lecturers in environmental science, geography, biology and ecology will find this work invaluable as a cross-disciplinary text while planners and politicians will welcome the succinct summaries as background material to planning decisions.

This edited volume brings together a collection of works that comprehensively address both the myriad geomorphological landscapes of the Maltese Islands and how their evolution has been shaped over various time-scales by different sets of processes. Additionally, the work highlights how the small geographical setting of the Maltese Islands helped to closely connect these landscapes with Maltese society and as a result, they have evolved from stand-alone examples of geomorphology to important backdrops of Maltese cultural identity. Most of the contributing authors are academics – both local and foreign – with a research focus on the geomorphology of the Maltese Islands. However, the editors have also (and purposefully) chosen other contributors from governmental institutions and research agencies, who complement the geomorphological research with their proactive work in selected case studies on Maltese landscapes.

The flora of the Mediterranean islands includes many rare and localized species unique to the islands. Some of these are particularly threatened with extinction due to various pressures caused by people and their activities in Mediterranean ecosystems. It includes 50 descriptive sheets of species which are especially threatened, based on the IUCN Red List criteria. Each sheet gives a description of the species with illustrations and maps, emphasizing the threats to the species, existing conservation measures and additional measures needed for their conservation. Aimed at the layman, the text is easily accessible to the non-botanist.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The study of European wild food plants and herbal medicines is an old discipline that has been invigorated by a new generation of researchers pursuing ethnobotanical studies in fresh contexts. Modern botanical and medical science itself was built on studies of Medieval Europeans’ use of food plants and medicinal herbs. In spite of monumental changes introduced in the Age of Discovery and Mercantile Capitalism, some communities, often of immigrants in foreign lands, continue to hold on to old recipes and traditions, while others have adopted and enculturated exotic plants and remedies into their diets and pharmacopoeia in new and creative ways. Now in the 21st century, in the age of the European Union and Globalization, European folk botany is once again dynamically responding to changing cultural, economic, and political contexts. The authors and studies presented in this book reflect work being conducted across Europe’s many regions. They tell the story of the on-going evolution of human-plant relations in one of the most bioculturally dynamic places on the planet, and explore new approaches that link the re-evaluation of plant-based cultural heritage with the conservation and use of biocultural diversity.