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In the great tradition of DarwinGÇÖs Voyage of the Beagle, this book is a first-person narrativeof daunting travel and scientific discovery in the little-known country of Myanmar.Dr. Kress explored many areas in this enigmatic country, surveying its teak forests,bamboo thickets, timber plantations, rivers, and mangroves to document its incrediblebotanical diversity. Myanmar is one of the great biodiversity GÇ£hot spotsGÇ¥ in Asia, butbecause of its social isolation and reputation for political repression it has been closedto—or avoided by—many scientists. Nevertheless, Dr. Kress was determined to searchfor and record plants that had not been studied since they were first discovered byWestern botanists over a century ago.