Description: Stalagmites are an extraordinarily powerful resource for the reconstruction of climatological palaeoseasonality. Here, we provide a review of different types of seasonality preserved by stalagmites and methods for extracting this information. A new drip classification scheme is introduced, which facilitates the identification of stalagmites fed by seasonally responsive drips and which highlights the wide variability in drip types feeding stalagmites. This hydrological variability, combined with seasonality in Earth atmospheric processes, meteoric precipitation, biological processes within the soil, and cave atmosphere composition means that every stalagmite retains a different and distinct (but correct) record of environmental conditions. Replication of a record is extremely useful but should not be expected unless comparing stalagmites affected by the same processes in the same proportion. A short overview of common microanalytical techniques is presented, and suggested best practice discussed. In addition to geochemical methods, a new modelling technique for extracting meteoric precipitation and temperature palaeoseasonality from stalagmite δ18O data is discussed and tested with both synthetic and real-world datasets. Finally, world maps of temperature, meteoric precipitation amount, and meteoric precipitation oxygen isotope ratio seasonality are presented and discussed, with an aim of helping to identify regions most sensitive to shifts in seasonality.

Description: For the identification of a flowering plant the first step usually is to discover to which family it belongs. With some experience, the families commonly encountered in one\xe2\x80\x99s area of interest are soon known, but when dealing with specimens from other places, notably those from the vast and rich subtropics and tropics, there is much less certainty. The pertinent literature is often not readily available as it is often found only in expensive, rare or obscure books, or journals, present only in a few specialized institutes. Basically only a few keys to the families of flowering plants of the world have ever been produced, the best known of which at present is Hutchinson\xe2\x80\x99s Key to the families of flowering plants (1973); less well-known are Lem\xc3\xa9e\xe2\x80\x99s Tableau analytique des genres monocotyl\xc3\xa9dones (1941) (incl. Gymnosperms) and his Tableau analytique des genres dicotyl\xc3\xa9dones (1943), and Hansen and Rahn\xe2\x80\x99s Determination of Angiosperm families by means of a punched-card system (Dansk Bot. Ark. 26, 1969, with additions and corrections in Bot. Tidsskr. 67, 1972, 152-153, and Ibid. 74 1979, 177-178). Of note also are Davies and Cullen\xe2\x80\x99s The identification of flowering plant families, 2nd ed. (1979), which, however, deals only with the families native or cultivated in North Temperate regions, and Joly\xe2\x80\x99s Chaves de identifi\xc3\xa7\xc3\xa3o das fam\xc3\xadlias de plantas vasculares que ocorrem no Brasil, 3rd ed. (1977), which may be useful in other tropical areas too.\nThere are a number of excellent keys prepared by an Austrian, Franz Thonner (1863-1928), which deal either with European genera (1901, 1903, 1918), or African ones (1908, 1913, 1915), or with all families of the world (1891, 1895, 1917). Some of these have apparently been completely overlooked, others have been known only to a few, and then sometimes served as a base for keys of their own, thereby again influencing keys by others (see Derived works).