Generations of plant scientists have been fascinated by alpine plant life - with the exposure of organisms to dramatic climatic gradients over a very short distance. This comprehensive text treats a wide range of topics: alpine climate and soils, plant distribution and the treeline phenomenon, physiological ecology of water-, nutritional- and carbon relations of alpine plants, plant stress and plant development, biomass production, aspects of reproductive biology, and human impacts on alpine vegetation. Geographically the book covers all parts of the world including the tropics. This new edition of Alpine Plant Life has been fully updated. It now includes over a hundred new references, new diagrams, revised and extended chapters, and a geographic index.