Plant Systematics contains the essential paradigms, concepts, and terms required for a basic understanding of plant systematics at the graduate or undergraduate level. Plant systematics is an area central to numerous other biological disciplines, and a large subset of plant scientists are required to take a course in plant systematics. Almost all ecologists, horticulturalists, plant developmental biologists, and plant pathologists are interested in plant systematics because it is central to their studies of the plants that form such a large part of every ecosystem and experimental system.

* The Henry Allan Gleason Award of The New York Botanical Garden, awarded for ''Outstanding recent publication in the field of plant taxonomy, plant ecology, or plant geography'' (2006)
* Contains numerous cladograms that illustrate the evolutionary relationships of major plant groups, with an emphasis on the adaptive significance of major evolutionary novelties
*Provides descriptions and classifications of major groups of angiosperms, including over 90 flowering plant families
* Includes a comprehensive glossary of plant morphological terms as well as appendices on botanical illustration and plant description