Wide coverage on topics including biochemistry, plant physiology, cytology, ecology, genetics, evolution, bio-geography, earth history, and the earth sciences. There is worldwide coverage of taxonomic groups: one-third of the entries are devoted to taxa, from bacteria and fungi to the main groups of flowering and non-flowering plants.
consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize and make accessible the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.”
To increase awareness and understanding of living nature through an Encyclopedia of Life that gathers, generates, and shares knowledge in an open, freely accessible and trusted digital resource.
The topics chosen for this edition range from the key role of microbes in the evolution of all life forms, to the microbial nature of the biosphere, and the microbial component of all human activities
This branch of the Earth sciences links ancient prehistory to modern environments. Quaternary terrestrial sediments contain the fossil remains of existing species of flora and fauna, and their immediate predecessors.
Quaternary science plays an integral part in such important issues for modern society as groundwater resources and contamination, sea level change, geologic hazards (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis), and soil erosion
The Virtual Plant is primarily intended for undergraduate use, but will be useful to postgraduate students who wish to gain a clearer understanding of plant structure and function.
A dictionary of plant sciences by 
Magill's encyclopedia of science : plant life
