A symposium volume, containing the papers delivered by 26 authors at a symposium held by The Linnean Society of London, the Botanical Society of the British Isles and of the International Oraginsation of Plant Biosystematists, Manchester, 9-11 September 1971. The papers of the symposium were divided in five sections, the first of which, 'introduction', contained preliminary remarks by Valentine and a major paper by Stebbins on Ecological distribution of centers of major adaptive radiation in Angiosperms. The second section contained papers on "major geographical disjunctions in relation to evolution and migration"; the third deals with "Endemism", the fourth with "geographical evolution in genera and families of special interest"; the fifth section was on "special topics" [migration of weeds, history and ecology of continental European plants, floristic connections between Southeast England and North France, computational methods in the study of plant distribution]. The sixth section of the book contains A.R. Clapham's discussion "questions answered and unanswered." The symposium was of special importance because it brought together modern evolutionary studies and perhaps more traditional but still valid macrophytogeographical approaches.