Scent of the Vanishing Flora

Inspired by Dougal Stermer′s book ′Vanishing Flora′, Roman Kaiser worked for more than ten years on collecting the scent of 267 endangered plant species worldwide. In the present volume, he invites us to a journey along the hotspots of biodiversity, all of them bearing endangered species, and discusses their scents. This compilation renders the book an important contribution to the UN International Year of Biodiversity.

Spis treści:
1. Introduction to the ′Scent of the Vanishing Flora′
1.1. Extinction of Species and Monitoring Endangered Species
1.2. Investigating the Scent of the Vanishing Flora
2. Illustrating the Scent of the Vanishing Flora
2.1. No More Existing in Nature
2.2. Ten Icon Species of the Vanishing Flora
2.3. The Scent of ′Living Fossils′
2.4. A Brief Look into Rainforests and Associated Biotopes
2.5. Hawaii′s Vanishing Flora
2.6. The Cape Floral Kingdom, a Closer Look at One of the Hotspots of Biodiversity
2.7. Endangered Conifers
2.8. Endangered Cacti
2.9. Endangered Species of My Home Country
2.10. Some Additional Protected and Endangered Species
3. The Icon Family of the Vanishing Flora: Orchidaceae
3.1. Orchids of the American Tropic
3.2. Orchids of the African Tropic
3.3. Orchids of the Indo–Australian Tropics and Subtropics
4. Analytics
4.1. General Remarks
4.2. Equipment Used
4.3. Compositions of the Presented Scents
4.4. Synthesis of New Compounds
Index
Acknowledgement

Nota biograficzna:
Roman Kaiser studied chemistry at Winterthur Technical College, and in 1968 he joined the Givaudan Research Centre in Dubendorf near Zurich as a fragrance and flavor chemist. His work at Givaudan has focused on investigating and reconstituting essential oils, absolutes, and similar natural products, as well as synthesizing natural scent components; since 1975 he has worked pri marily on the investigation and reconstitution of all types of natural scents using ′headspace′ techniques including complementary analytical methods. During this time, he has investigated around 2700 natural scents from which he reconstituted 550 based on the individual synthetic scent constituents. Many of these scent reconstitutions have been used for the creation of famous fragrances.
In over 80 cases, the results of these investigations have been published in specialist journals. He is also the author of a book entitled "The Scent of Orchids" summarizing the olfactory and chemical investigations of over 160 species. In fall 2006, his most recent book entitled ′Meaningful Scents around the World – Olfactory, Chemical, Biological, and Cultural Considerations′ was published which summarizes his most important scent discoveries/experiences.
In 1988, he was awarded with the Roche Research Prize and in 1995 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich has bestowed on Roman Kaiser an honorary doctorate in natural sciences.
In his spare time, Roman Kaiser is a passionate observer of all aspects of the natural world, though the ′plant scent′ phenomenon is clearly of special significance to him.