Forensic botany is the application of plant science to the resolution of legal questions. A plant's anatomy and its ecological requirements are in some cases species specific and require taxonomic verification; correct interpretation of botanical evidence can give vital information about a crime scene or a suspect or victim. The use of botanical evidence in legal investigations in North America is relatively recent. The first botanical testimony to be heard in a North American court concer...

This book presents a broad view of contemporary research in evolutionary plant ecology. It illustrates the broad spectrum of life history stages which affect plant reproductive success in some fashion.

Far to the south of Arizona’s sprawling metropolises, a rolling savanna of grass, oak, and mesquite rises above the surrounding deserts. The Sonoita Plain is a basin of a thousand square miles bracketed by mountains, a land once the domain of cowboys that is now more and more the focus of exurban development. These southwestern grasslands are both typical of and distinct from those of the Great Plains—similarly shaped by drought, grazing, and fire, but with a different flo...

The fifth book in the Arizona Borderlands Mystery series.An open-pit mine has blighted a small mountain range in the desert grasslands of southeastern Arizona. Deputy Sheriff Calvin Creede hates what the mine has done to his favorite view, but he has been told to avoid the controversy and stick to law enforcement. All that changes when two individuals associated with the mine are found murdered. In their relentless pursuit of the killer or killers, Creede and his colleagues discove...

Sam Sawyer is a fishing guide and part-time sleuth living in the Florida Keys. He escaped a floundering academic career to realize his childhood dream of becoming a guide. But it has come at a heavy price, because his wife and colleague has chosen to remain behind in the halls of ivy. They see each other all too rarely, and lately things have gotten decidedly chilly. Sam's life takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a pair of shoes lying next to a huge crocodile on a sandy bank deep in...

Learn how to connect your curriculum planning to children’s interests and thinking.With this book, educators will discover a systematic way for using documentation to design curriculum that emerges from children’s inquiries, what they wonder, and what they want to understand. Get strategies for designing a classroom environment at the start of the year to facilitate emergent inquiry curriculum. Each chapter guides teachers to document and reflect on their thinking ...

“Sam Sawyer may become my favorite crime fighter. I can’t wait for the next book in this new Florida Keys mystery series …”—Maryjane Elizabeth Jones, Heat Until BoilingThey called Arthur Broom “The Glades Man,” not because he lived way out there in the river of grass, but because he was spending all his money trying to save it. And as one of the richest men in Florida there was much he could do to beat back the onslaughts of agriculture and development that were threatening ...

There is a killer at large in the oak grasslands of southeastern Arizona whose weapon of choice is a deadly variety of southwestern rattlesnake. Deputy Sheriff Calvin Creede doesn't like snakes, but with the help of veteran herpetologist Dr. Hazel Smith and his fiancé, Maria Obregon, he seeks to find the mountain cave from which a collection of Mojave rattlesnakes recently was looted. Then he must determine which of a variety of suspects has taken them home. Was it the leader of a gang of ...

In 1540 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led an expeditionary force from Mexico into what is now the American Southwest. His journey provides the backdrop for this contemporary mystery novel. Deputy Sheriff Calvin Creede mostly works alone in one corner of Arizona's smallest county. His job has been a simple one until the day a flash flood exposes the rusted remains of an old pickup. A body in the truck turns out to be the long-lost son of a prominent ranching family, and forensic evidence sh...

There is a killer at large in the oak grasslands of southeastern Arizona whose weapon of choice is a deadly variety of southwestern rattlesnake. Deputy Sheriff Calvin Creede doesn’t like snakes, but with the help of veteran herpetologist Dr. Hazel Smith and his fiancé, Maria Obregon, he seeks to find the mountain cave from which a collection of Mojave rattlesnakes recently was looted. Then he must determine which of a variety of suspects has taken them home. Was it the leader of a gang of ...

Sam Sawyer is a fishing guide and part-time sleuth living in the Florida Keys. He escaped a floundering academic career to realize his childhood dream of becoming a guide. But it has come at a heavy price, because his wife and colleague has chosen to remain behind in the halls of ivy. They see each other all too rarely, and lately things have gotten decidedly chilly. Sam’s life takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a pair of shoes lying next to a huge crocodile on a sandy bank deep in...

“Sam Sawyer may become my favorite crime fighter. I can’t wait for the next book in this new Florida Keys mystery series …”—Maryjane Elizabeth Jones, Heat Until BoilingThe fourth book in the Florida Keys Mystery series.Fishing guide and part-time sleuth Sam Sawyer is with a client in the remote backcountry of Everglades National Park, when they come upon the abandoned remains of an old red canoe. Forensic evidence suggests it may have belonged to Seb...