Introduction to the Species Chapters

This chapter gives an introduction to the comprehensive species-specific information available for all European charophytes. All chapters follow the taxonomic concept outlined in detail in Chap. 5 , for which the determination key (Chap. 10 ) was developed, and the checklist (Chap. 2 ), which includes all taxa retained by the authors of this book. After a presentation of the numerous persons involved in the production of the distribution maps (Chap. 12 ), the single genera of charophytes are presented (Chap. 13 ), followed by an introduction into two difficult taxonomic groups, the section Agardhia and the Hartmania group within the genus Chara (Chaps. 14 and 15 ).