"Editions 1 to 7 appeared over a 54-year period from 1943 to 1996. David Allardice Webb (1912–96) was the sole author of editions 1 to 6 (1943, 1953, 1959, 1963, 1967, 1977). He died in an auto crash just before publication of edition 7 (1996), authored by Webb, J. Parnell & D. Doogue. Webb became titular with Parnell & T. Curtis’s edition 8 (2012): Webb’s An Irish Flora. Edition 8 has 118 families and 1543 species and subspecies versus, respectively, 132 and 1341 in edition 7.
The 8th edition represents a substantial update. The colorful book cover has a spectacular Irish landscape. Inside are Elaine Cullen’s drawings, mostly in color, though B&W in the glossary. Edition 8 is printed on surprisingly thick paper stock (it takes muscle power to turn the pages) and at 201 × 140 × 50 mm makes a much heftier brick than edition 7. Compared to earlier editions, in edition 8 “changes include: typographic tidying-up of the text; use of a more modern … typeface; further reduction in the use of specialised terminology; removal of Roman numerals from the main body of the text; incorporation of new [color] drawings; incorporation of new species; rewriting of many keys; addition of a new key to trees and shrubs in winter; addition and updating of distributional information; addition of English names for all protected species and expansion of the number of Irish and English common names; inclusion of a list of protected species with comments on conservation” (p. viii—thanks for the clear list). The color map on page xiv is new.
Edition 8 “is substantially different from previous ones, most notably … in the order of the families” (p. viii): lycophytes, monilophytes (ferns, including horsetails), gymnosperms, Nymphaeaceae, monocotyledons (Gramineae terminal, not Orchidaceae), Ceratophyllaceae, and other dicotyledons ranging from Papaveraceae to the terminal Umbelliferae. This phylogenetic arrangement follows A.R. Smith & al. (2006) for pteridophytes and APG III (2009) for angiosperms. The “relatively stable consensus view … [that] has emerged” for the classification of angiosperms justifies “rearranging [their families in] a book such as this” (p. ix). See also the “Considerations” commentary following.
Genera have also been realigned, and comments about new (or old) familial assignments are made in the text. Without thorough analysis, for which I have neither time nor inclination, it is hard to ascertain how extensive reshuffling of genera is. My impression is that it is not consistent or appreciable. For example, family 105 Scrophulariaceae (pp. 338–355; see also the first two titled reviews following) in Ireland has 22 native and alien genera, including Buddleja, but family 104 Plantaginaceae (pp. 333–337) has only 5 genera, including former Callitrichaceae and Hippuridaceae but not any former Scrophulariaceae, as proposed by APG.
In Webb’s An Irish Flora arrangement of genera within families and species within genera is also phylogenetic. Because nothing is alphabetical, finding a taxon is often difficult. Keep fingers handy on the 27-page “index to scientific names and authorities” (the latter a new feature, but only in the index), which is inconveniently sandwiched between the 4-page “index to Irish names” and the 9-page “index to English common names.” Tabbing or color marking the Latin-name index is highly advisable."
– Rudolf Schmid, University of California, Berkeley, Taxon 62(1), February 2013, 200
