I am very pleased to introduce this important new contribution to systematics. This book is an excellent example of what can be achieved when a plant family is studied by an interdisciplinary group of researchers who each bring their different skills to answer the problems. The Gentianaceae is a good model for this kind of study because it is reasonably large, with its over 1600 species in 87 genera, and also because it contains several genera that were of dubious position before this work was carried out. The family has considerable morphological variation and has adapted to several different functional syndromes for pollination and dispersal. It is also a family that has not been studied on a complete worldwide basis at the tribal and subtribal level since the work of Gilg in 1895. This was a work waiting to be done. Many previous workers have speculated about the systematic position of Fagraea and Potalia and about Saccifolium with its extraordinary pouch-like leaves. These are now shown to fit well within the circumscription of the monophyletic Gentianaceae as defined here. I was also most interested to see where the strange saprophytic genera Voyria and Voyriella fit into the system, the latter near to Saccifolium. The authors have truly used all the available evidence to produce a phylogenetic framework that has yielded a monophyletic classification for the family.

I am also impressed with how the morphological work has combined so well with the molecular.