p>This book, the magnum opus of Australian orchid expert David L. Jones, is a new and much improved edition of what is already the best and most authoritative book on the subject. The First Edition, published in 1993, was spectacular and comprehensive, describing more than 1,300 species and subspecies. Line drawings helped the reader to easily determine the genus of each orchid observed./p> p>Australia is the world centre of orchid biodiversity, and now that our understanding of the subject has developed over the past quarter of a century, this new Third Edition contains many more species and photos, and much more detailed text than previous editions. It covers more than 100 additional orchid species, including some which have not yet officially been described. References are now included in the text, distribution maps are included, and there is a more complete and comprehensive introduction./p> p>There are better and clearer layouts for species entries, with greater emphasis placed on conservation aspects, which is important because so many of our orchids are now under threat from all sorts of factors. In short this is a comprehensive guide that will contain correct identification of the orchids (a failure in many other books). It will arguably be the best and most complete work on orchids to be published anywhere in the world./p>