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Informateur OPTIMANewsletter
OPTIMA Newsletter - 30(e) / Informateur
OPTIMA - 30(e)
Printed version ISSN 0376-5016 30 (1996), online version: ISSN 2225-6970, published by the Secretariat of OPTIMA.
N°. 30(e)
NOTICES OF
PUBLICATIONS
by Werner Greuter
Notices of
Publications:
OPTIMA; Cryptogamae; Dicotyledones; Monocotyledones; Floras; Flower Books; Floristic
Inventories and Checklists; Excursions; Chorology; Karyology; Ecology; Regional
Studies of Flora and Vegetation; Ethnobotany,
useful plants; Conservation
Topics, Red Data Books; National
parks and protected areas; Gardens; Herbaria; Bibliography
and Documentation; Biography
and historical subjects; Reprints; Symposium
Proceedings; Abstract
volumes; New
Periodicals
OPTIMA
- Dimitrios Phitos & Werner Greuter (ed.)
Proceedings of the VI OPTIMA Meeting, Delphi,
10-16 Sept. 1989. [Botanika hronika, 10.]
Botanical Institute, University of Patras,
1991. 987 pages, black-and-white illustrations,
paper. Price: SFr 250.
96 papers on all aspects of Mediterranean botany,
corresponding to the symposium lectures and poster
presentations at the VI OPTIMA Meeting. Addresses, lectures
and resolutions at the opening ceremony and closing session
are also included. Symposium topics were: Current floristic
projects; Geographical isolation and cytological
differentiation; Phytogeography of lichens; Taxonomic botany,
phytogeography and plant conservation in Greece; Forest
management and plant conservation; Wild relatives of
cultivated plants.
- Hüsnü Demiriz & Neriman Özhatay (ed.)
OPTIMA. Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting, Istanbul,
8-15 September 1986. Istanbul Üniversitesi,
Fen Fakültesi, Istanbul, 1993. xxxii + 797 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, 4 extra plates (one in
colour), 1 folded inset (graph), paper. Price: SFr
180.
78 papers on a variety of topics related to Mediterranean
botany, corresponding to the symposium lectures and poster
presentations at the V OPTIMA Meeting. Symposium topics were:
The Mediterranean Sea, a threatened ecosystem and its plants;
Biology and systematics of geophytes; Turkish contributions
to taxonomic botany and phytogeography; Archaeobiology;
Reproductive biology and adaptive strategies of angiosperms.
Index
Cryptogamae
- Ramon Folch i Guillèn & al. (ed.)
Historia natural dels països catalans. 5. Fongs i
líquens (by Xavier Limona & al.).
Enciclopèdia Catalana, Barcelona, 1991 (ISBN
84-7739-267-6). 528 pages, colour illustrations, hard
cover.
The botanical part of this 15-volume encyclopaedia,
comprising vol. 4-7 and begun in 1984, is now complete (see
OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (2-3). 1991). The salient feature of the
present volume, apart from its well documented and well
written Catalan text, are its numerous (584) and excellent
illustrations, mostly photographs, which give a balanced
picture of the organismic diversity treated. This is by no
means a mushroom-and-toadstool picture book, but a
pictorially supported textbook of all categories of fungi,
lichenized and non-lichenized, including myxomycetes. Looking
for a good colour photograph of a slime mould, an oomycete, a
chytrid? You will find it here, side by side with a good
graphic representation of its life cycle and main
morphological features. Paper and print quality are as
remarkable as the illustrations and written contents.
- Carlos Lado Catálogo comentado y síntesis
corológica de los Myxomycetes de
la Península Ibérica e Islas Baleares (1788-1990). [Ruizia, 9.] Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas, Vitruvio 8, E-28006
Madrid, 1991 (ISBN 84-00-07105-0). 142 pages, map,
laminated cover.
An inventory of the Ibero-Balearic myxomycete flora, with
numerous critical remarks. Taxon information, by provinces,
is cited, from published and unpublished (manuscripts,
herbaria) sources. Species inventories for each province form
a second chapter.
- Giovanni Monti, Mauro Marchetti, Luca Gorreri
& Paolo Franchi Funghi e cenosi di aree
bruciate. Indagine nellambiente del parco
[naturale Migliarino-San Rossore-Massaciuccoli].
Pacini, Via Gherardesca, I-56014 Ospedaletto,
1992 (ISBN 88-7781-068-8). 149 pages, black-and-while
illustrations, colour photographs, laminated cover.
Two natural park areas along the Tyrrhenian coast, in
which the pine woods had been destroyed by fire in August
1989, were studied during early vegetation regeneration with
regard to their fungal flora. The main portion of the book
brings detailed descriptions, with brilliant colour
photographs and illustration of microscopic details, of 40
species of fungi.
- Giuseppe Venturella A check-list of
Sicilian fungi. [Bocconea, 2.]
Herbarium Mediterraneum Panormitanum, Via Archirafi
38, I-90123 Palermo (ISBN 88-7915-001-4). 221 pages,
1 graph, paper.
A mainly literature-based checklist of (non-lichenized)
micro- and macrofungi so far reported from Sicily, including
few unpublished records. The list gives highly condensed
literature references of reported occurrences, by provinces,
island groups or mountain massifs, as well as substratum
(host) indications.
- Euaggelia Kapsanakê-Gkotsê Sumbolê stên
ereuna tês mukêtohlôridas tês nêsou Krêtês.
Taxinomikê kai hlôridikê meletê tôn Uredinales. [Evangelia Kapsanaki-Gotsi, Contribution to
the knowledge of the mycoflora of Kriti island
(Hellas). Taxonomic and floristic study of the Uredinales.]
PhD Thesis, Department of Biology, University
of Athens, 1986. 256 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, folded map, paper.
354 rust samples collected between 1977 and 1983 mainly in
W. Crete were studied and assigned to 93 taxa (90 different
species). Two species and one variety are described and named
as new. The treatment includes several new records for Crete,
or for Greece as a whole, and indications of new host plants.
Detailed study, using SEM, of the Puccinia calcitrapae and P. hieracii aggregates enabled the recognition of
segregate species. The book is well illustrated by 238
micrographs on 33 plates, mostly of spores.
- Pier Luigi Nimis The lichens of Italy. An
annotated catalogue. [OPTIMA Commission for
Lichens publication, 1.] Museo Regionale
di Scienze Naturali [Monografie, 12], Via
Giolitti 36, I-10123 Torino, 1993 (ISBN
88-86041-02-0). 897 pages, hard cover and dust-cover.
A detailed inventory of Italian lichens and their
distribution by provinces, with full documentation of
literature sources. Ecology, general distribution, taxonomy,
etc., are commented upon in notes under each taxon. This
impressive inventory, the first to be published under the
auspices of OPTIMAs Commission for Lichens, has been
recognized by the award of OPTIMAs Silver Medal to its
author. (Full reviews can be found in, e.g., Ann. Bot. Fenn.
31: 28; Herzogia 10: 266; and Vegetatio 116: 173; all 1994.)
- Pedro Pablo Moreno & José María Egea Estudios sobre el complejo Anema-Thyrea-Peccania en el sureste de la Península Ibérica y
Norte de Africa. [Acta botanica barcinonensia, 41.] Departament de Biologia Vegetal, Facultat
de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 1992. 66
pages, black-and-white illustrations, paper.
14 lichen species, belonging to four genera usually
referred to the Lichinaceae, are fully treated (keys,
synonymy, descriptions, specimen citations, distribution
maps) and partly illustrated by micrographs; one of them
belongs to a new genus, Digitothyrea, validated
elsewhere by the same authors.
- Vrec Aramovic Manakjan
Listostebelnye mhi jugo-vostocnoj Armenii. [The
mosses of S.E. Armenia.] Akademija Nauk
Armjanskoj S.S.R., Erevan, 1989. 313 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, hard cover.
The mosses known from the three floristic provinces
encompassed by S.E. Armenia (Daralagaz, Zangezur, Meghri) are
treated mainly with respect to their distribution, which is
given in detail both for within and outside the area covered.
Numerous distribution maps are included, mostly covering
Caucasia as a whole. A floristic analysis summarizes, among
other things, the habitat preferences of each species. No
keys or morphological descriptions are present, but in some
cases figures showing anatomical details are included.
Index
Dicotyledones
- Cèsar Blanché & Angel M. Romo (ed.)
Current research on the tribe Delphineae Warming (Ranunculaceae). [Also as Collectanea
botanica, 19.] Institut Botànic, Av. dels
Muntanyans, E-08038 Barcelona, 1990. 160 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, laminated cover.
Price: US$ 20 (OPTIMA members: US$ 15).
This volume of Collectanea botanica, contrary to
tradition, is devoted to a single subject and is also
available as a special issue with coloured cover. 10 papers
are included, dealing with various aspects related to the Delphinieae (consistently, as it seems, misspelled "Delphineae")
and their genera, Aconitella, Aconitum, Aquilegia, and Consolida. Topics treated include ecology, floral
biology, phytochemistry, and horticulture, apart from
taxonomy and evolution.
- Cèsar Blanché y Vergés Revisió
biosistemàtica del gènere Delphinium L.
a la Península Ibèrica i a les Illes Balears. Institut dEstudis Catalans [Arxius de
la Secció de Ciències, 98], Carrer del Carme
47, E-08001 Barcelona, 1992 (ISBN 84-7283-194-9). 290
pages, black-and-white illustrations, paper.
This was presented as a PhD thesis in 1985 and, in 1986,
was awarded the Pius Font i Quer prize, but publication was
much delayed. It is an in-depth study of Ibero-Balearic Delphinium taxa, considering classical morphology as well as
micromorphology of pollen, seeds and epidermis features,
anatomy, and chromosome numbers. Types are newly designated
for several names. As a conclusion and synthesis, a classical
taxonomic revision is presented, recognizing 10 species and
one additional subspecies.
- T. C. G. Rich Crucifers of Great Britain
and Ireland. [BSBI Handbooks, 6.]
Botanical Society of the British Isles, c/o Natural
History Museum, London SW7 5BD, U.K., 1991 (ISBN
0-901158-20-8). [5] + 336 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, laminated cover. Price: £10.75.
A practical field guide, with full (partly illustrated)
identification keys, and full descriptions with analytical
illustrations of the 138 species and interspecific hybrids
found in the area. Many (60) of the taxa are mapped for
Britain and Ireland, the maps being somewhat difficult to
interpret due to excessive reduction in print.
- G. G. Graham & A. L. Primavesi Roses of
Great Britain and Ireland. [BSBI Handbooks, 7.]
Botanical Society of the British Isles, c/o
Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, U.K., 1993
(ISBN 0-901158-22-4). 207 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, laminated cover. Price: £12.
On the British Isles, Rosa is represented by 10
native and about as many naturalized species, plus a great
number of interspecific hybrids. The species receive a full
treatment by keys and illustrations, the hybrids are mostly
just described. The principal native taxa are mapped by
analogy to Perring & Walterss Atlas of the
British flora. Main diagnostic features of habit, acicles
and prickles, leaves, calyx, and hips are thoroughly
discussed and illustrated in the introductory part. The book
will be found useful far beyond the territory it is designed
to cover.
- Nigel Maxted An ecogeographical study of Vicia subg. Vicia. [Systematic and
ecogeographic studies on crop genepools, 8.]
International Plant Genetic Resources
Institute, Via delle Sette Chiese 142, I-00145 Roma,
1995 (ISBN 92-9043-240-3). [5] + 184 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, laminated cover.
The subgenus comprises 8 sections and 38 species and is
centred in the E. Mediterranean and S.W. Asia. This treatment
is not a traditional monograph but a source book for genetic
resources conservation purposes; it nevertheless includes
keys to species (but not infraspecific taxa), descriptions of
sections (but not series), and selected analytical
illustrations. Ecology and distribution, including maps and
specimen citations, are central to the account. The
synonymies are somewhat awkward, with duplication when the
authors, or even merely the spellings of the source, differ
obviously a side-effect of computer assistance.
- A. Libaniou-Têniakou Biosustêmatikê
meletê tou genous Viola sectio Viola (Violaceae) stên Ellada. [A.
Livaniou-Tiniakou, A biosystematic study of Viola sect. Viola (Violaceae) in Greece.] PhD Thesis,
University of Patras, 1991. [3] + iv + 337 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, paper.
Following in-depth study of morphological and caryological
features, including morphometrical statistics of within- and
between-population variation, 14 species and two additional
subspecies representing 3 subsections are recognized. Two
taxa, Viola oligyrtia from Peloponnisos and V.
cretica subsp. glabra from Crete, are newly
described and validly named. Keys, detailed descriptions,
specimen citations and distribution maps are provided.
- Gabriel Alziar Catalogue synonymique des Salvia L. du monde (Lamiaceae). [Biocosme
mésogéen, 5: 87-136. 1988; 6: 80-115, 163-204.
1989; 7: 59-109. 1990; 9: 413-497. 1992; 10: 33-117.
1993.] Ville de Nice. 2 maps, 22 colour
photographs.
This synonymic checklist is now complete except for the
reference list (if it is to be published at all) and is an
important nomenclatural source for a large, subcosmopolitan
genus which has one of its centres of diversity in the
Mediterranean area. Although Alziars
"Catalogue" has not as it seems been published
separately but consists of a series of papers in a journal,
it may be worth mentioning it in the present context (one may
note that the title varies, either "L." or "du
monde" being sometimes omitted).
- Pedro L. Pérez de Paz & Lourdes Negrín Sosa
Revisión taxonómica de Sideritis L.
sugénero Marrubiastrum (Moench)
Mend.-Heuer (endemismo macaronésico). [Phanerogamarum
monographiae, 20.] Cramer, Berlin &
Stuttgart, 1992 (ISBN 3-443-78002-4). 327 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, hard cover.
The natural group of species sometimes referred to a
separate genus Leucophae has a controversial taxonomic
history in view of its obvious complexity. This monograph
appears to provide the final key for its understanding. The
24 species recognized (1 Madeiran, 23 Canarian) have been
thoroughly investigated in every respect, their distribution
established, and their relationships clarified. The treatment
is profusely illustrated, and includes the description and
valid naming of one new section, one species and several
hybrids. Recognition of natural hybridization as one of the
sources of the present complexity of variational patterns is
one of the major merits of the authors.
- Concepción Obón de Castro & Diego Rivera
Núñez A taxonomic revision of the section Sideritis (genus Sideritis) (Labiatae). [Phanerogamarum monographiae, 21.]
Cramer, Berlin & Stuttgart, 1994 (ISBN
3-443-78003-2). x + 640 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, hard cover.
A major monograph of one of the most critical
Mediterranean (almost exclusively Ibero-Maghrebine) plant
groups, recently honoured by the award of the OPTIMA Silver
Medal to its authors. It is based principally on the study of
herbarium specimens and uses classical morphological
characters in the first place. Many of the 69 species
recognized are further subdivided into subspecies (up to 11,
in Sideritis hyssopifolia) or varieties, reflecting
their natural polymorphism. They are assigned to 16
subsections and several series, all newly described
and (mis)named, with epithets in the singular mostly in need
of correction. Many novelties are included, some previously
described by the same authors. All taxa are illustrated by
drawings and sometimes indumentum micrographs.
- Petra-Andrea Hinz Etude biosystématique de
lagrégat Digitalis purpurea L. (Scrophulariaceae) en
Méditerranée occidentale. [Reprints from Candollea 41:339-368; 42: 167-204, 693-716; 43: 223-247,
587-643; 44: 147-174, 681-714; 45: 125-199.
1986-1990; with common title, introductory part and
indexes, [7] + [9] pages.] PhD thesis,
Université de Genève, & Conservatoire &
Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève, 1990.
This in-depth biosystematic study of a critical complex of
four W. Mediterranean species and several infraspecific taxa
was awarded the OPTIMA Silver Medal at the Borovec Meeting in
1993. While not easy to use due to the piecemeal way in which
it was published, it has the merit of clarifying the taxonomy
and evolution of a difficult and much confused complex of
considerable horticultural and pharmaceutical interest.
- Ourania N. Geôrgiou-Karabata
Biosustêmatikê meletê tês omadas Anthemis
tomentosa (Asteraceae) stên Ellada. [A
biosystematic study of the Anthemis tomentosa group (Asteraceae) in Greece.] PhD Thesis,
University of Patras, 1990. [5] + 299 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, 1 folded map, 2 folded
tables, paper.
A polymorphic complex of littoral annuals has been
investigated, and the riddle beautifully resolved by the
recognition of four vicarious species with several
infraspecific taxa (some of the latter being new, and newly
named). The criteria used are mainly flower and fruit
morphology, presented in great detail. Chromosome number and
morphology are virtually uniform in the group. The observed
distributional patterns, with one amphi-Adriatic, one
peri-Aegean and two Aegean insular species, are excellent
case studies for phytogeographical analysis.
- Hermann Meusel & Arndt Kästner
Lebensgeschichte der Gold- und Silberdisteln. Monographie
der mediterran-mitteleuropäischen Compositen-Gattung Carlina. Band II. Artenvielfalt und
Stammesgeschichte der Gattung. [Österreichische
Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse,
Denkschriften, 128.] Springer, Wien, 1994
(ISBN 3-211-86558-6). 657 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, 32 extra plates of colour photographs,
paper.
This superbly illustrated and richly documented second
half of Meusel & Kästners Carlina monograph
(see OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (73-74). 1991, for a review of the
first volume) is made to the gusto of both the taxonomist and
general biologist. The new classification here presented and
amply documented recognizes 5 subgenera and several sections
and subsections, 28 species and many subspecies and
varieties, most of the supra- and many of the infraspecific
names being new or newly combined here. Each taxon is seen in
its natural coenotic context, illustrated by vegetation
relevés, and in a biogeographical frame, represented by maps
of similar distributions. Growth form, habit and habitat are
described and profusely illustrated by photographs and
drawings. The classical aspects of a taxonomic monograph are
in no way neglected. Cladists and non-cladists will be
equally interested in the juxtaposition of a
computer-generated and a more intuitively designed cladogram.
A monument indeed, and a useful tool in the same time!
- Walter Huber
Biosystematisch-ökologische Untersuchungen an
den Erigeron-Arten (Asteraceae) der Alpen. Geobotanisches
Institut der ETH, Stiftung Rübel [Veröffentlichungen, 114], Zürich, 1993. 143 pages, black-and-white
and colour illustrations, laminated cover. Price: SFr
58.
A very complete revision, covering a variety of topics
from typification and nomenclature through traditional
morphology to ecology, phytosociology and chromosome studies.
Over 200 populations have been studied, representing the 9
Alpine Erigeron taxa (8 species and one newly named
subspecies), each illustrated by a colour photograph. The key
extends to all Central European representatives of the genus,
and to potentially confusable species of Aster and Conyza as well.
- Robert Vogt Die Gattung Leucanthemum Mill. (Compositae-Anthemideae) auf
der Iberischen Halbinsel. [Ruizia, 10.]
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, Vitruvio 8, E-28006 Madrid, 1991 (ISBN
84-00-07161-1). 261 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, laminated cover.
Of the c. 70 species of the genus, 19 occur on the Iberian
Peninsula, representing all three sections. Of all but one of
the 26 taxa (species or subspecies) recognized, living
material was available for study, originating from no less
than 350 different localities. Chromosome studies as well as
investigation of fruit anatomy are among the main data
sources on which Vogts classification (which includes
one new section, four new species and several novelties at
subspecies rank) is based. The work, generously illustrated
by drawings of habit and details as well as maps, was
distinguished by the award of the OPTIMA Silver Medal to its
author, in 1993.
Index
Monocotyledones
- Juan Antonio Devesa Alcaraz (ed.) Las
gramíneas de Extremadura. Universidad de
Extremadura, Badajoz, 1991 (ISBN 84-7723-094-3). 358
pages, drawings, laminated cover.
A regional monograph and field guide for identification of
the 175 grass species (209 taxa) of W. Spanish Estremadura.
The 83 full-page drawings, by A. Cadete, of plant habit and
analytical details contribute essentially, along with the
careful descriptions and keys, to the practical value of the
book.
- Juan Antonio Devesa Alcaraz (ed.) Anatomía
foliar y palinología de las gramíneas extremeñas.
Universidad de Extremadura, Badajoz, 1992 (ISBN
84-7723-129-x). 397 pages, graphs, black-and-white
photographs, laminated cover.
The companion volume to N° 25 (above) describes in its
first part the gross leaf morphology, cross section and
abaxial epidermis microstructure for all 209 grass taxa known
from Estremadura. A key permits the identification of
non-pooid genera. Significant examples are illustrated on 19
plates of micrographs. An ordination by Principal Component
Analysis is presented, using 94 characters. The pollen of 178
taxa has been studied, and the quantitative data thus
obtained are presented in tabular form.
- M. W. van Slageren Wild wheats: a monograph
of Aegilops L. and Amblyopyrum (Jaub. & Spach) Eig (Poaceae). Wageningen Agricultural University [Papers, 94(7)], Wageningen, and ICARDA, Aleppo, 1994
(ISBN 90-6754-377-2). xiii + 512 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, laminated cover.
A phenomenal achievement, both taxonomically and
nomenclaturally, designed to set new bases for the
classification of the larger part of the secondary gene pool
of bread wheat. As to taxonomy the approach is synthetic,
leaving a mere 22 species (plus five varieties) in Aegilops, a single one in the redeemed split Amblyopyrum, 7
intergeneric nothospecies (including one artificial hybrid)
in ´ Aegilotriticum, and a foreshadowed total of 6
species in the not yet fully treated Triticum. The
treatment is very comprehensive, with ample space being
allocated to, e.g., distributional, ecological and other
notes, and extensive specimen citations. The illustration,
too, is exemplary, including habit and analytical drawings,
habitat photographs, and distribution maps. The author
concedes to have spent inordinate amounts of time on
nomenclatural matters, reducing the 1015 extant (c. 700
validly published) names to a mere 38 accepted ones and
typifying all of the latter (even the nothogeneric name,
although being a formula it has by definition no type!), yet
not all nomenclatural questions are as yet definitely
resolved (e.g. in the case of A. caudata, for which a
conservation proposal is still pending). Perhaps the most
critical part of this revision is the chapter on taxonomic
limits, where the author opts for a pragmatic approach
suiting the breeder and familiar to most users, yet in
blatant conflict with the requirement of monophyletic
taxonomic units. (For those thinking of taxonomy in
evolutionary terms, Stebbinss 40-years-old statement is
still true, that "the maintenance of Triticum and Aegilops as separate genera becomes an
absurdity".)
- Uwe Schippmann Revision der Europäischen
Arten der Gattung Brachypodium Palisot
de Beauvois (Poaceae). [Boissiera, 45.] Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques,
Ville de Genève, 1991 (ISBN 2-8277-0061-1). 250
pages, black-and-white illustrations, laminated
cover. Price: SFr 75.
Even including the Canarian endemic Brachypodium
arbuscula, the number of European species of this genus
is merely 8, plus a single additional subspecies. To reach
this conclusion, extensive investigations of, e.g., leaf
micromorphology and anatomy, chromosome numbers, vegetative
plasticity and overall variability (partly using numerical
methods such as Principal Component Analysis) have been
necessary, taking into account several thousand herbarium
specimens and hundreds of live plants observed in the field
and often cultivated. The fully investigated synonymy is
particularly impressive and, for several species, occupies
four to six pages. The taxonomic treatment is very thorough
and includes illustrations of both macroscopic and
microscopic features, as well as dot maps. A model revision,
appropriately distinguished by the award of an OPTIMA Silver
Medal in 1993.
- Robert Portal Bromus de
France. Portal, Av. St-Christophe, F-43750
Vals. 111 pages, drawings, ring brochure.
A privately published compendium of brome-grasses
indigenous or occasionally introduced in France. 35 taxa
(species or subspecies) are described in detail, each being
illustrated by a full page of original drawings (habit and
details); 6 further taxa, doubtfully present, are more
briefly treated but also illustrated. Carefully built and
generously illustrated identification keys as well as a
synonymic index are provided. The author is a gifted
botanical artist and a keen specialist in the same time,
being familiar with the old and recent literature, and with
the plants themselves. A hidden treasure.
- José Luis Pérez Chiscano, José Ramón Gil Llano
& Fernando Durán Oliva Orquídeas de
Extremadura. Fondo Natural, Apdo. 142,
Avila, 1991 (ISBN 84-86430-19-4). 223 pages,
black-and-white illustrations and colour photographs,
laminated cover.
The orchidaceous flora of Estremadura comprises 34 species
and two hybrids, representing 11 genera. Following a general
introductory part, each taxon is illustrated by one or more
colour photographs (89 in total), then described and mapped.
The most noteworthy among them is the endemic Serapias
perez-chiscanoi (S. viridis Pérez-Chisc., non
Vell.), whose name commemorates its original discoverer and
senior author of this book, a well-known member of the OPTIMA
Commission for mapping the orchids of the Mediterranean area.
- Giorgio Perazza Orchidee spontanee in
Trentino-Alto Adige. Riconoscimento e diffusione.
Fotoatlante con chiavi analitiche e carte di
distribuzione per la provincia di Trento. [Pubblicazioni
dei Musei Civici di Rovereto, 87.]
Manfrini, Calliano (Trento), 1992 (ISBN
88-7024-476-8). 183 pages, black-and-white
illustrations and colour photographs, hard cover.
The book is far more than an inventory of the orchid flora
of the Trento province (with corresponding grid distribution
maps), plus an outlook on the Alto Adige: it is a superb
iconography of the 63 species (27 genera) present in the
area, including some of the most gorgeous and superbly
reproduced full-page colour close-ups of native European
orchids presently on the market (which is a major achievement
indeed). A partly illustrated identification key and
indications on habitat etc. are a useful corollary.
- Hans R. Reinhard, Peter Gölz, Ruedi Peter &
Hansruedi Wildermuth Die Orchideen der Schweiz
und angrenzender Gebiete. Fotorotar,
CH-8132 Egg, 1991 (ISBN 3-905647-01-0). x + 348
pages, black-and-white illustrations and colour
photographs, hard cover.
Much rather a scientific textbook on Swiss orchids (68
species) than one more among the plenty of beautiful picture
books in the orchidaceous field, although the quality and
variety of its colour photographs is remarkable and ranks
high among its many merits. The introductory portions are
thoroughly written and very informative. The chapters on
habitats, conservation status, morphology (especially of the
vegetative parts) and development include a wealth of data
not or not readily available elsewhere. The text on floral
biology, with several dozens of close-ups of pollinators
caught in the act, is unique among documentations of its
kind. Even ethnobotanical aspects have been covered. The
central species-by-species treatment, headed by tables on
flowering phenology and altitudinal range, occupies just over
one half of the total book and includes profuse illustrations
and distribution maps.
- Giannês Th. Kalopisês Ta orheoeidê tês
Elladas. Apografê kai episkopêsê. [Yannis Th.
Kalopissis, The orchids of Greece. Inventory and
review.] Mouseio Krêtikês Ethnologias,
Kentro Ereunôn, GR-70200 Bôroi, 1988. 40 + [68]
pages, black-and-red distribution maps, laminated
cover and dust-cover.
The Greek orchidaceous flora encompasses 130 taxa of
specific or subspecific rank, one quarter of which are
endemic (23) or subendemic (9) to the country. This
publication presents a synthesis of our knowledge on their
distribution, as per 1988, and is based on 25 years of the
authors own field experience and on the numerous
contributions by others which, in recent times, have been
busy with mapping the Greek orchids in the frame of the
relevant OPTIMA project.
Index
Floras
- Adalbert Hohenester & Walter Welss
Exkursionsflora für die Kanarischen Inseln mit
Ausblicken auf ganz Makaronesien. Ulmer,
Stuttgart, 1993 (ISBN 3-8001-3466-7). 374 pages,
drawings, 24 extra plates of colour photographs, hard
cover. Price: DM. 68.
A very condensed and therefore handy although complete
excursion Flora which, contrary to presently available
guides, covers endemics and aliens alike. The whole Flora
consists of an extensive dichotomous key, with indications of
distribution, endemism and ecology (habitat or plant
communities) under each terminal taxon. Related taxa found on
other Macaronesian islands (Azores, Madeira, Salvage and Cap
Verde Islands), or in neighbouring mainland areas, are often
intercalated in smaller print. Drawings of details aiding
identification are scattered throughout the text, whereas the
96 colour photographs of characteristic species form a
compact block. An English translation would be welcome.
- Santiago Castroviejo & al. (ed.) Flora
iberica. Plantas vasculares de la Península
Ibérica e Islas Baleares. Vol. III, Plumbaginaceae (partim)-Capparaceae. Vol. IV, Cruciferae-Monotropaceae. Real Jardín Botánico, C.S.I.C., Madrid,
1993 (ISBN 84-00-07375-4 & 84-00-07385-1). liv +
730, liv + 730 pages, map and drawings, cloth with
dust-cover.
Extensive reviews of this Flora were written when the two
first volumes had been published (OPTIMA Newsl. 20-24:
(22-23). 1988; 25-29: (22-23). 1991), and the enthusiastic
comments then made remain fully valid for the present
volumes. This is, and will remain for a long time, the
standard work on the flora of the Iberian Peninsula. Major
genera treated in volume 3 include Limonium, postponed
from vol. 2, with 107 numbered species, Viola (28
species), Hypericum (26), Helianthemum (24),
and Salix (24), most of which are also notable by
including a large number of interspecific hybrids (enumerated
at the end without comment) and by having their main centre
of diversity in the Floras territory. Most of volume 4
is devoted to the Cruciferae, which include several
critical genera somewhat unequally treated by either
pronounced splitting (e.g. Erigeron) or lumping (e.g. Biscutella),
always as it seems for excellent reasons; Resedaceae, Ericaceae, and a couple of minor families make up for the remainder of
the text. Several nomenclatural novelties are validated in
each volume, including the names of two new taxa, a section
of Halimium in vol. 3 and a species of Alyssum in
vol. 4. The excellent and abundant illustration by original
drawings of plant habit and analytical details is a
particularly valuable and appreciated feature of this Flora.
- Josep Nuet i Badia & Josep M. Panareda i
Clopés Flora de Montserrat, 1-3. [Biblioteca
Abat Oliba, sèrie il·lustrada, 7-9.]
Publicacions de lAbadia de Montserrat, Apartat
244, E-08013 Barcelona, 1991-1993 (ISBN 84-7826-274-1
[whole work], -246-6 [vol. 1], -247-4 [vol. 2],
-403-5 [vol. 3]). 341, 311, 205 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, hard cover and
dust-cover.
The Montserrat is a mountain of Palaeogene conglomerate
rocks, 1236 m high, situated N.W. of Barcelona in Spanish
Catalunya. A famous Benedictine monastery is built on its
flank, whose old botanical and pharmaceutical tradition has
made Montserrat one of the source areas for the botanical
knowledge of the entire province. The authors have studied
the old and recent herbarium documents, literature and
manuscript sources conserved mostly at Barcelona but also at
the Montserrat Abbey, and have thoroughly explored the area
for many years. They now present a new inventory of 1040
species of vascular plants, numbered in the sequence of Flora
europaea, having eliminated almost 200 old but
unconfirmed records. The treatment includes keys but no
descriptions, distribution maps for each numbered species
using a 1 km × 1 km mapping grid, notes on the distribution,
ecology, literature sources, etc., and in many cases drawings
or black-and-white photographs of live plants or herbarium
specimens. The first two volumes treat the pteridophytes,
gymnosperms and dicots, the final, third volume includes the
monocots, an extensive bibliography and a general index.
- Bernard Girerd La flore du département de
Vaucluse. Nouvel inventaire. Barthélemy,
Avignon, 1991 (ISBN 2-903044-89-9). 391 pages,
black-and-white maps and drawings, 16 extra plates of
colour photographs, hard cover and dust-cover.
The vascular flora of the Vaucluse Department, according
to this inventory, comprises 1686 species. Each is briefly
(non-diagnostically) characterized as to its salient
features, habitat and occurrence in the area. No keys are
provided, but a few drawings and 24 colour photographs of
characteristic plants (including the endemic, still somewhat
controversial Leucoium fabrei) are included. For
almost 100 of the rarer species, the local range is mapped on
one of the 20 distribution maps.
- Daniel Jeanmonod & Hervé Maurice Burdet (ed.)
Compléments au Prodrome de la flore corse. Scrophulariaceae, par Daniel Jeanmonod & Jacques Gamisans.
Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques, Ville de
Genève, 1992 (ISBN 2-8277-0809-4). 234 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, laminated cover.
Price: SFr 32.65.
This series of family treatments for the island of Corsica
aims at filling the gaps due to the non-achievement of
Briquets and later Cavilliers Prodrome de la
flore corse (see earlier reviews in OPTIMA Newsl. 20-24:
(25-26). 1988; 25-29: (25-26). 1991). By the present
instalment, one of the three large families still wanting has
been taken care of (what now remains to be done are
essentially the Rubiaceae and Compositae, plus
a few minor families). The treatment is remarkably thorough
and critical, and includes description of almost half-a-dozen
infraspecific taxa new to science, in the genera Chaenorrhinum,
Scrophularia, Verbascum, and Veronica. Black-and-white
photographs, notably micrographs of the diagnostically
important seeds, are used to a much larger extent than in
previous fascicles.
- Jost Fitschen Gehölzflora. Ein Buch
zum Bestimmen der in Mitteleuropa wildwachsenden und
angepflanzten Bäume und Sträucher, mit
Früchteschlüssel. Ed. 10, by Franz H. Meyer, Ulrich
Hecker, Hans Rolf Höster & Fred-Günter
Schroeder. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg
& Wiesbaden, 1994 (ISBN 3-494-01221-0). [806]
pages, drawings, hard cover.
This popular manual for the identification of woody plants
native or cultivated out-of-doors in Central Europe now
reaches its tenth edition, again improved and enlarged. It
includes separate generic keys based on vegetative, floral,
and fruit characters, respectively, and well over one
thousand drawings of analytical details. Hybrids are given
full treatment, and important cultivars are mentioned. A
practical and reliable field guide, improved through feedback
from generations of users. The awkward pagination system,
starting anew for each family, may be found irritating by
those not used to it.
- David Aeschimann & Hervé Maurice Burdet
Flore de la Suisse et des territoires
limitrophes. Le nouveau Binz. Ed. 2.
Griffon, Neuchâtel, 1994 (ISBN 2-88006-506-1). lxxi
+ 603 pages, drawings, hard cover. Price: SFr. 48.
The success of this pocket Flora is demonstrated by the
fact that, five years after its publication, the original
edition was already out of stock. The present, second edition
has been improved in many details but was not substantially
changed. One has sometimes blamed the authors for having
disrupted the monolithic tradition established among Swiss
field botanists by Binzs Schul- und Exkursionsflora through
its many editions. The fact is that the French and German
versions of the standard Swiss school Flora have lately been
drifting apart, with the former following Cronquists
system of classification and, at the lower levels, the
taxonomy and nomenclature of Flora europaea and Med-Checklist, and the latter opting for
Ehrendorfers sequence and delimitation of families and
holding a rather traditional line for genera and species.
Both are very carefully edited and utterly reliable, and
neither is particularly well illustrated (the Nouveau Binz being rather cumbersome to use in this respect, having
all its drawings grouped together on 17 consecutive pages).
- Miloje R. Sari& (ed.) Flora Srbije. Srpska
Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, Beograd, 1992. xv + 429
pages, black-and-white maps and drawings, hard cover.
Mladen Josifovi6s Flora SR Srbije was
published in ten volumes, including two volumes of
supplements, between 1970 and 1986, and is rightly considered
one of the basic critical Floras for the Balkan countries. As
stated in the (English and Serbian) preface, if not on the
title page, the present volume is the first of its second
edition. The progress made since 1970 in the knowledge of the
Serbian flora is perhaps best reflected by the number of
pages which, while the coverage is unaltered, has increased
by well over one hundred. The illustrations were newly drawn
and unfortunately reduced in number (from 55 to 21 plates),
which is compensated by 20 new grid distribution maps, each
for several species.
- Kiril Micevski Flora na Republika
Makedonija. Vol. 1(2). Makedonska
Akademija na Naukite i Umetnostite, Skopje, 1993.
Pages [4] + 153-394, paper.
The first instalment of this critical Flora was published
in 1985 under a slightly different title (see OPTIMA Newsl.
20-24: (26-27). 1988). The present, second part of volume 1
comprises the treatments of the Berberidaceae,
Papaveraceae, Fumariaceae, Platanaceae, Ulmaceae, Moraceae,
Cannabaceae, Urticaceae, Fagaceae, Betulaceae, Juglandaceae,
Phytolaccaceae, and Caryophyllaceae. The latter
family alone accounts for about three quarters of the text,
being one of the larger and more critical groups in the
Balkans. The index provided, curiously, covers only the
second part, the first one remaining unindexed for the time
being.
- N. Andreev, M. Ancev, S. Kozuharov, M. Markova, D.
Peev & A. Petrova Opredelitel na
visite rastenija Bblgarija (plaunoobrazni,
hvocoobrazni, papratoobrazni i cvetni
rastenija). Nauka i Izkustvo, Sofija, 1992
(ISBN 954-02-0055-5). 788 pages, drawings, hard
cover.
This key to the c. 3800 species of vascular plants of the
Bulgarian flora, which was awarded the OPTIMA Silver Medal in
1993, is basically a concise field guide for identification
purposes, but also provides an updating of the published
volumes of the big national Flora, the Flora na NR
Bblgarija (with 9 volumes published so far) and a preview
of the volumes yet to come. Its main part consists of
indented, sparingly illustrated keys to the genera, species
and subspecies, in landscape disposition. Contrary to the
contents, the typographical layout will meet with justified
criticism from the users side: the lack of lexical page
headers is a serious shortcoming in a book in which the
families and genera are arranged alphabetically, more so
since the Latin plant names, neither italicized nor
consistently placed, are difficult to spot. To find their
way, users are supposed to know offhand the family
assignation of all genera. The numbering system employed
(independent alphabetical runs for genera, species and,
curiously, subspecies) has no obvious use. Many new
combinations, mostly of subspecific rank, are validated in
the Addenda, where a list of additional taxa is
also to be found.
- Arne Strid & Kit Tan (ed.) Mountain
flora of Greece. Vol. 2. Edinburgh
University Press, Edinburgh, 1991 (ISBN
0-7486-0207-0). xxv + 974 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, hard cover and dust-cover. Price:
£90.
This second volume completes a basic manual on the
vascular plants found growing in Greece at or above the
timber line (c. 1800 m a.s.l.). The first volume has been
reviewed extensively in this Newsletter (20-24:
(27-28). 1988). The present one, slightly bulkier owing to
the larger number of species treated, comprises contributions
by no less than 34 different authors, including the editors,
and brings about substantial improvements of our knowledge of
critical plant groups of the southern Balkan Peninsula. About
one third of the taxa are either new additions to the Greek
flora, or have had their name and/or taxonomic disposition
changed with respect to the corresponding Flora europaea treatments. Apart from the 58 new names and combinations
validly published here, many more such novelties were
included in a series of precursor papers in the journal Willdenowia. The illustration consists of 43 plates of drawings,
partly original and partly reproduced from recent published
sources, 3 plates of scanning micrographs showing details of Taraxacum cypselae, and an outline map. Altogether, a major
achievement!
- Ralf Jahn & Peter Schönfelder
Exkursionsflora für Kreta. Ulmer,
Stuttgart, 1995 (ISBN 3-8001-3478-0). 446 pages,
graphs and maps, 24 extra plates of colour
photographs, hard cover. Price: DM 68.
What had started of as a co-operative effort of students
preparing an excursion, pieced together into a xeroxed Prodromus by their professor (see OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (27). 1991),
has undergone a major metamorphosis and is now available as a
nicely printed, thoroughly edited field guide. I have been
genuinely impressed by the exhaustive coverage of even the
most recent literature that is apparent from the text. Some
of the species keyed out are yet to be validly named (in Limonium and Ophrys, in particular), four new combinations are
validated in the introduction. The 101 colour photographs all
portray endemic or subendemic taxa seldom if ever illustrated
elsewhere. The coverage of the Flora, contrary to what the
title indicates, includes the Karpathos island group: species
found only there are given full treatment although they
appear in smaller print. This book is a most welcome addition
to the literature on the flora of Mediterranean islands.
- Deryck E. Viney An illustrated flora of
North Cyprus. Koeltz, Königstein, 1994
(ISBN 3-87429-364-5). Pages iii-xxix, 2-697,
drawings, coloured frontispiece, laminated cover.
Price: DM 58.
This Flora, dealing with the spermatophytes (but not
pteridophytes) of the Turkish-Cypriot sector of the Island,
is the work of a "journalist-turned-botanist", as
the cover text has it. About 1100 species are treated in a
quite professional manner, each being illustrated by a
drawing of the habit and sometimes of a detail. These plain
and unpretentious drawings are astoundingly faithful
portraits and are, together with the keys, an excellent help
for plant identification. The book will be a good companion
in the field and is a worthy little brother of Meikles
two-volume critical Flora of Cyprus.
- A. A. El-Gadi (ed.) Flora of Libya. Parts
148-150. [Koeltz Scientific Books on behalf
of] Department of Botany, Al-Faateh University,
Tripoli, "1990" [1992] (ISBN
3-87429-309-2). [3] + 3 + [1] + 3 + [1] + 4 pages,
drawings and map, paper. Price: DM 20.
I erred when (in OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (21-22). 1991) I
stated that Flora of Libya was complete with part 147
plus the two unnumbered fascicles on pteridophytes and
gymnosperms. The magic number 150 had apparently to be
attained, by three families (Sambucaceae, by A. A.
El-Gadi; Cannabaceae, by F. B. Erteeb; Flacourtiaceae, by M. A. Siddiqi) each consisting of a single, non-native
(cultivated or casual) species. While the original drawings
may have been fine, the print is execrable. The printed date
(1 Oct 1990) is as false as usual; availability through
Koeltz dates from 12 Mar 1992.
- Karl Heinz Rechinger (ed.) Flora iranica. Flora
des iranischen Hochlandes und der umrahmenden
Gebirge. Persien Afghanistan, Teile von
West-Pakistan, Nord-Iraq, Azerbaidjan, Turkmenistan.
Lfg. 168, Dipsacaceae (by K. H. Rechinger
& H. W. Lack; 67 pages, 60 extra plates;
"Apr" [28 Jun] 1991; Price: öS 620). Lfg.
169, Violaceae (by A. Schmidt; 29 pages, 24
extra plates; "Nov 1992" [8 Feb 1993];
Price: öS 272); Lfg. 170, Liliaceae III (by
K. Persson; 40 pages, 14 extra plates, of which 8 in
colour; same dates; Price: öS 272); Lfg. 171, Ranunculaceae (by M. Iranshahr, K. H. Rechinger & H. Riedl;
249 pages, 276 extra plates, of which 8 in colour;
same dates; Price: öS 2596 ). Akademische
Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz (ISBN 3-201-00728-5,
the whole work). Paper.
One might be led to believe that Flora iranica is
so-to-say holding its breath in view of the final assault
toward completion, with "only" four issues
published within as many years. The truth, I suspect, might
rather be that preparing the bulky and important treatments
yet to come takes quite some time and energy. However this
may be, the progress to date is far from negligible: the Liliaceae (sensu lato) at last completed (see also the last review,
in OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (30-31). 1991), plus three other
families including a major one (Ranunculaceae); which
leaves us with, principally, the pteridophytes, Chenopodiaceae,
Cyperaceae, Rubiaceae, and the huge genus Astragalus yet
to come. The Dipsacaceae treatment, except for
recognition of the fancy genus Scabiosiopsis, is quite
conservative, ignoring much of the recent progress in
understanding the evolution of Scabiosa s.l. Fasc.
169, devoted to the genus Viola (23 species), is the
only among the present four not to include nomenclatural
novelties. Karin Perssons account of Colchicum (including Merendera; 17 species) has the merit of being based on
live material to a large extent, so that characters of both
the flowering and fruiting plant could be accounted for. By
far the largest morsel are the Ranunculaceae, mostly
as it seems due to Rechinger and Iranshahr (the role of Riedl
as co-author of Ranunculus and sole author of several
minor genera remains somewhat mysterious, since obviously his
own results as laid down in the but slightly earlier Flora
of Pakistan account [see below] are only partly taken
care of, due to "difficulties in co-ordination");
this volume is particularly rich in newly described species
belonging to several genera, the larger of which are Ranunculus s. str. (excl. Batrachium, Ceratocephala, Halerpestes, and Ficaria; 88 species) and Delphinium (excl. Consolida; 53 species). Of the generously supplied illustrations
mostly photographs of selected herbarium specimens
the original drawings deserve special mention: 3
plates of professionally executed drawings of Scabiosa diaspores,
by I. Reimann; 6 plates of fruiting Colchicum, by K.
Persson; and no less than 40 plates of flower analyses of Delphinium and Consolida, by M. Iranshahr. The splendid colour
photographs in fasc. 170 (19, by K. Persson and P. Wendelbo)
and 171 (16, by S.-W. Breckle and P. Wendelbo) are a welcome
extra. Botanists look forward to the next volumes of this
extraordinary, really monumental work.
- M Assadi, M. Khatamsaz, A. A. Maassoumi & [except
for Nos 6-8] V. Mozaffarian
Flora of Iran. N° 4, Ulmaceae (by M.
Khatamsaz; 25 + [2] pages; 1991). No 5, Violaceae (by M. Khatamsaz; 50 + [2] pages; 1991). No 6, Rosaceae (by M. Khatamsaz; 352 + [2] pages;
1992). No 7, Zygophyllaceae (by Kh.
Akhiani; 49 + [2] pages; 1993). No 8, Dipsacaceae (by Z. Jamzad; 109 + [2] pages; 1993). No 9, Resedaceae (by M. Nowroozi; 54 + [2] pages;
1993). No 10, Juncaceae (by Zh.
Taheri; 77 + [2] pages; 1993). Research
Institute of Forests and Rangelands, [Tehran]. 7
brochures.
Since this national Flora was started (see OPTIMA Newsl.
25-29: (31-32). 1991) it keeps making good and steady
progress without losing any of its initial qualities. It is
interesting to compare, e.g., the Dipsacaceae treatment
with that (duly quoted) published shortly before in Flora
iranica by Rechinger & Lack: the discrepancies are
perhaps few but by no means negligible, with several
additional species and one genus (Knautia, with two
species) newly recorded for Iran, and with examples of
splitting (Cephalaria procera, C. microcephala) but
also lumping (Scabiosa olivieri, S. flavida). Clearly,
more research is needed in these instances. Names of new taxa
are not validated in the flora but in precursory papers,
often in the Iranian journal of botany. The copious
full-page drawings are among the major qualities of the work;
as to possible shortcomings, one might mention the rather
incomplete synonymies. The habit of restarting at 1 the
numbering for doubtful species, at the end of the
corresponding genus, is somewhat confusing.
- S. I. Ali & Y. J. Nasir (ed.) Flora of
Pakistan. N° 191, Boraginaceae (by Y. J.
Nasir; [2] + 200 pages; hard cover; "25 Aug
1989"). N° 192, Labiatae (by I. C.
Hedge; [2] + 310 pages; hard cover; "31 Dec
1990"). N° 193, Ranunculaceae (by H.
Riedl & Y. J. Nasir; [2] + 164 pages; hard cover;
"15 Feb 1991"). N° 194, Nelumbonaceae (by
M. Qaiser; [2] + 4 pages; paper; "10 Aug
1993"). N° 195, Nymphaeaceae (by M.
Qaiser; [2] + 10 pages; paper; "12 Aug
1993"). N° 196, Lentibulariaceae (by T.
Ali; [2] + 8 pages; paper; "14 Aug 1993").
Department of Botany, University of Karachi.
The six new issues of Flora of Pakistan presented
here consist of three tiny fascicles devoted to water plants
and three sizeable volumes covering as many largish families
of the countrys flora. The quality of text and
illustrations is as high as before (see OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29:
(32-33). 1991). Vol. 193 raises a problem of authorship
citation, the statement that three specified genera were
"revised by Yasin J. Nasir" being quite ambiguous:
does it mean that treatments of these three genera are by
Riedl & Y. Nasir and the others by Riedl alone (as
authorship of a new species and a new combination would seem
to imply)? or that Y. Nasir alone is responsible for the
three genera, and the other ones are authored jointly (as one
would conclude from the authorship on the title page)?
Accepting the title-page statement at face value, for the
whole book, is probably the least arbitrary answer. New
combinations, or more rarely new taxa, occur sporadically in
each volume, and indexers would certainly be grateful to the
editors for considering inclusion of a corresponding separate
index, in future issues.
Index
Flower books
- Ingrid Schönfelder & Peter Schönfelder
Kosmos-Atlas Mittelmeer und Kanarenflora. Über
1600 Pflanzenarten. Kosmos, Stuttgart, 1994
(ISBN 3-440-06223-6). 304 pages, drawings, maps and
colour photographs, hard cover and dust-cover. Price:
DM 128.
This picture book of Mediterranean plants is not a field
guide (as such it would be oversized) but will be found very
useful when preparing a field trip or naming ones slide
collection, back home. Less than 5 % (c. 1200) of the
species found in the area are illustrated (and shortly but
diagnostically described), and a few more are mentioned in
passing; yet the selection is adroit and allowing for
the deliberate omission of mountain species equitable
except perhaps for N. Africa. The plants represented are
those that are characteristic enough to be recognized on a
colour picture, even though they may not be showy: many
grasses are present, but no Festuca, Koeleria, or Poa. In some cases the species concept used is overly
wide, even though this is not apparent from synonymy; an
example is Crepis neglecta, mapped for Crete where it
is in fact represented by the vicarious C. cretica when
the latter is indeed the plant figured under the former name.
The quality of the colour photographs is excellent, both
aesthetically and with regard to identification value.
Country-by-country (or, for Canarian endemics, island-by
island) distribution maps are provided, largely using the
familiar Med-Checklist divisions except for
merging Malta with Sicily, and Albania with former
Yugoslavia.
- Maria da Luz Rocha Afonso & Mary McMurtrie
Plantas do Algarve. Serviço
Nacional de Parques, Reservas e Conservação da
Natureza, Lisboa, 1991 (ISBN 972-9034-45-1). 397
pages, colour illustrations, hard cover and
dust-cover.
Lisbon botanist Rocha Afonso and Scottish botanical artist
McMurtrie have combined their efforts to produce a gorgeous
rhapsody in book form, on the Algarve flora. Despite its
Portuguese title the text is fully bilingual, in Portuguese
and English, and is devoted entirely to the characterization
of the c. 300 species appearing on the airy water-colours
that are reproduced on 112 plates. They are grouped by
subject into 11 chapters, the first two devoted to particular
areas (serra de Monchique, península de Sagres), the three
last to particular kinds of plants (grasses, orchids, trees),
and the others to special habitats. A splendid combination of
art and science.
- Betty Molesworth Allen A selection of
wildflowers of southern Spain. Mirador,
E-29640 Fuengirola, 1993 (ISBN 84-88127-06-5). 251
pages, drawing, colour photographs, laminated cover.
The book tries "to give easy identification with
simple text to some of the common wildflowers of southern
Andalusia". Mrs Molesworth Allen, a distinguished
British amateur botanist who has been residing for many years
in southern Spain, is well qualified for such a task. She
presents us with a selection 207 species, each illustrated by
one or two colour photographs, shortly described, and
characterized as to habitat preferences, general
distribution, and possible uses. The quality of the pictures
is somewhat uneven, and a few inexplicable mix-ups have
obviously happened (Plantago lanceolata featuring as P.
lagopus, and the figures of Asphodelus albus and Urginea
maritima being transposed). Otherwise, a quite
commendable booklet.
- Angel Mª Romo Flores silvestres de
Baleares. Rueda, E-28924 Alcorcón, 1994
(ISBN 84-7207-073-5). 412 pages, black-and-white and
colour illustrations, hard cover. Price: Ptas 3500.
One first wonders, when leafing it through, whether this
is really just a flower book. It has the looks of a fully
fledged excursion Flora, with keys, descriptions, and
original drawings (by E. Sierra) representing a majority of
the species. It includes much original information such as
distributional data, indication of life span, etc., and also
the validation of several new combinations and of the name of
at least one new taxon (no separate index of such novelties
is, alas, provided). There is a most readable chapter on the
history of botanical exploration of the Balearic Islands,
illustrated with rare photographical documents, as well as an
account of endemic or subendemic taxa, illustrated by colour
photographs, same as a section portraying sites and
landscapes of botanical interest. The main problem is that
coverage is far from complete, although this is not
explicitly stated, so that the unwarned user trying to
identify an unaccounted-for plant will either feel frustrated
or end up with an erroneous identification. The users
task is further complicated by the lack of reference to the
drawings, under the corresponding species accounts
especially when the name in the text and that in the caption
are not the same (as for Allium antonii-bolosii/A. cupanii subsp. hirtovaginatum).
- Ignazio Camarda, Bruno Corrias, Silvana Diana
& Franca Valsecchi Piante di Sardegna con sessantacinque aquarelli di Anne Maury.
Chiarella, Sassari, 1992. 30 pages of text and 65
loose colour plates, in folder.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Italian
Botanical Society (SBI) its Sardinian section, in conjunction
with the Banca Popolare of Sassari, published a calendar for
1988, reproducing 13 of Florence-based botanical artist Anne
Maurys paintings of Sardinian endemic plants. A second
such calendar, on macquis plants, followed the year after
(see OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (38). 1991), and three more were
printed for the years 1990-1992, in exactly the same format,
on native trees, sand dune plants and mountain plants of
Sardinia, respectively. Of the 13 species of each year, 12
(each corresponding to a month) were provided with
descriptive texts printed on the back sheet, whereas the one
on the cover, while lacking a description of its own, was
accompanied by a general text introducing the years
subject. In view of the ephemeral nature of calendar
publication, and taking the 1992 annual SBI assembly in
Sassari as a welcome pretext, the Sardinian section of the
SBI arranged for a reprint of all plates to be made which,
together with the explanatory matter (to which the five
lacking descriptions for the cover sheet plants were added),
was offered to the participants of the gathering. The result
is a Sardinian botanical iconography of remarkable beauty and
botanical faithfulness, of which the artist as well as the
publisher may be justly proud.
- Emilia Poli Marchese Piante e fiori
dellEtna. [Bel vedere, 2.]
Sellerio, via Siracusa 2, Palermo, 1991. 198 pages,
colour photographs and maps, laminated cover.
This guide to the flora of the Mt Etna natural park, well
illustrated by the authors own photographs of plants
(218) and botanical landscapes (14), will no doubt be well
received by plant lovers visiting the area. The text, both of
the introductory chapter on vegetation features and of the
(very condensed) treatments of the individual species, is in
Italian. Users should correct some misidentifications (e.g., "Sedum
rubens" is S. hispanicum, "Trifolium
arvense" is T. lappaceum; "Brachypodium
sylvaticum" is B. pinnatum) as well as a
confusion of captions that has not been rectified on the
Errata slip: on p. 123, "Teucrium siculum" is
in fact Scutellaria rubicunda (same as "S.
columnae" on the next plate) whereas "Teucrium
flavum" is truly T. siculum.
- Velco I. Velcev, Stefan I. Kozuharov & Minco
E. Ancev (ed.) Atlas na endemicnite rastenija
v Balgarija. Balgarska Akademija Nauk,
Sofija, 1992 (ISBN 954-430-004-x). 204 pages, colour
illustrations and maps, cloth with dust-cover.
This well printed, good-looking book represents what one
might call a first step toward a full, illustrated inventory
of the Bulgarian endemic flora. Of the c. 270 taxa (species
and subspecies, unfortunately not listed in detail) believed
to be endemic to the country, about one half (128) are
treated here, plus 35 subendemic ones that extend to
neighbouring countries. Each treatment extends over a full
page and comprises a Bulgarian text (description,
distribution, habitat, protection status, literature
references), a distribution map, and the reproduction of a
colour painting of the plant. The quality of the latter (by
unnamed artists) is quite remarkable. Among the taxa treated,
many are of controversial status, being often merged with
others, and the data presented here may help assessing their
appropriate taxonomic status. Oligoglott readers will
appreciate the inclusion of a full translation of the
introduction, in a colourful English that renders
"centre" by "fireplace". A truly
outstanding contribution to Balkan botany, both
scientifically and in terms of space occupation on a library
shelf (size c. 23 ´ 26 cm).
- George Sfikas Wild flowers of Greece. Efstathiadis, Athens, [reimpr.] 1993 (ISBN
960-226-061-0). 125 pages, black-and-white and colour
illustrations, laminated cover. Price: Drs 1400.
- George Sfikas Medicinal plants of Greece. Efstathiadis, Athens, [reimpr.] 1993 (ISBN
960-226-076-9). 142 pages, colour illustrations,
laminated cover. Price: Drs 1400.
- George Sfikas Trees and shrubs of Greece. Efstathiadis, Athens, undated (original
edition 1978). 213 pages, black-and-white and colour
illustrations, laminated cover. Price: Drs 1800.
Three cheaply produced and reasonably priced booklets
which have a lot to offer to the plant-lover on his or her
first visit to Greece. Sfikas is a gifted nature
photographer, and while not a professional botanist and
sometimes rightly hesitant as to the exact scientific name
applying to a given plant, he has a remarkably good overall
knowledge of his subject. The print is in places defective,
and some of the colour may have faded, yet the images are
mostly useful and sometimes excellent. It is a good thing
that Sfikas, having some claim to botanical artistry, often
adds his own, partly coloured drawings; those in the woody
plant booklet I found to be particularly useful.
- Hellmut Baumann Greek wild flowers and
plant lore in ancient Greece. Translated and
augmented by William T. Stearn and Edwyth Ruth
Stearn. Herbert Press, London, 1993 (ISBN
1-871569-57-5). 252 pages, black-and-white and colour
illustrations, hard cover and dust-cover. Price:
£16.95.
Having long been available in German and Greek (see OPTIMA
Newsl. 14-16: 38-39. 1983; 17-19: 42. 1985), this remarkable
book, which combines modern plant lore and ancient history in
a most instructive and appealing fashion, has now at last
been translated into English. It has found translators worthy
of its merits, and too famed to be introduced to the reader:
William Stearn and his spouse share and extend the
authors, Hellmut Baumanns, classical erudition
and love for the plant world of Greece, and theirs is of
course a masterly recast, a model of good teamwork between
author and translators. The new text, combined with the
beautiful and often dazzling photographs of the original
issue, will make this a bestseller among hellenophilous
botanists.
- Walter Strasser Pflanzen des ostägäischen
Raumes (türkisches Festland und vorgelagerte
Inseln). Ott, Thun, 1993 (ISBN 3-7225-6757-2).
130 pages, drawings, laminated cover.
The cover text claims this to be the only plant
identification book for the E. Aegean area, with which even
amateur botanists can easily identify their plants. This may
be slightly over-optimistic: neither is the booklet itself
what one is used to call an identification guide, nor may one
take easy identification for generally granted unless one is
already well familiar with the subject. Yet Strasser has, as
a result and by-product of his several excursions to the
area, produced a quite useful little field vademecum whose
principal merit lies in the many (over 700) original and
faithful if simple drawings portraying E. Aegean plants. No
keys are provided, and the proposed identification is visual,
with a single text line per species to verify the result. The
drawings form 9 groups: ferns, grasses, orchids, woody
plants, and the remainder subdivided by flower colour.
Non-illustrated species are referred to under their most
similar portrayed relative, each with a one-line diagnostic
phrase (an almost Linnaean approach). "Generally
known" central European species occurring in the area
are enumerated in an appendix, with but a few selected
drawings. Scientific accuracy is remarkable throughout.
- George Sfikas Wild flowers of Cyprus. Efstathiadis, GR-14565 Anixi, 1994 (ISBN
960-226-061-0). 320 pages, colour photographs, maps,
drawings, laminated cover.
A nice, colourful introduction to the island of Cyprus and
its wildflowers, aimed at the botanically interested tourist.
It has a fluently written introductory part on the island in
general, and on its vegetation and flora in particular,
followed by a selection of its more common and characteristic
wild or widely cultivated plants, illustrated on 111 plates
of colour photographs and briefly described (enumerations of
species not so treated are appended). Some plants are wrongly
identified (e.g., "Matthiola sinuata", a
species absent from Cyprus, is M. tricuspidata;
"Minuartia sintenisii" is M. picta; and "Crepis
fraasii" is Picris altissima). The two only
drawings, of Rosularia and Liquidambar, are
unblushingly plagiarized from Meikles Flora of
Cyprus (but with the presumed hybrid R. cypria ´ R.
pallida misnamed R. cypria).
- V. Pantelas, T. Papachristophorou & P.
Christodoulou Cyprus flora in colour. The
endemics. Privately published [?], Athens,
1993 (ISBN 9963-7931-0-x). 104 pages, colour
photographs, laminated cover. Price: £12.50.
An excellent complement to the foregoing book, there being
but little duplication of images. The 128 taxa (species,
subspecies, varieties, and one forma) thought to be endemic
to Cyprus, enumerated in alphabetical sequence, are briefly
characterized, about 100 of them being illustrated by one or
more of the 154 mostly excellent photographs. The taxonomy is
largely that of Meikles Flora, but at least
three species described subsequently (one perhaps unpublished
as yet) have been included: Centaurea akamantis, Ophrys
lapethica, and Valantia eburnea. The fact that the
illustration captions are limited to the name of the (often
non-endemic) species, the infraspecific designation being
omitted, is somewhat awkward. Identifications are generally
reliable, with at least one exception (the plant figured as Trifolium
campestre [subsp. paphium] does not belong to T. sect. Chronosemium).
Index
Floristic
inventories and checklists
- Jean-Pierre Lebrun & Adélaïde L. Stork
Enumération des plantes vasculaires
dAfrique tropicale. Vol. I, généralités
et Annonaceae à Pandanaceae; Vol. II, Chrysobalanaceae à Apiaceae; Vol. III, Monocotylédones: Limnocharitaceae à Poaceae. Conservatoire et Jardin
botaniques de la Ville de Genève [Publication
hors série, 7, 7a, 7b], 1991, 1992, 1995 (ISBN
2-8277-0108-1; -0109-x; -0110-3). 249, 257, 341
pages, some black-and-white photographs, maps, and
drawings, laminated covers. Price: SFr 40.80 per
volume.
For the purpose of this inventory, Tropical Africa
(excluding Madagascar) is so defined as to exclude the
territory of Med-Checklist and the Flora of
southern Africa. Three of the four planned volumes have
been published so far, listing almost 17,500 of an estimated
total of 24,000 species. The last volume will apparently
comprise the sympetalous dicotyledons (assuming that the
gymnosperms are not to be covered). The treatment is very
succinct, with reference to a source (or sources) where
further information, e.g. on distribution, can be found.
Recent novelties are added in the form of appendices. Once
complete, this checklist will provide the base-line for work
on a future new Flora of Tropical Africa.
- Alfred Hansen & Per Sunding Flora of
Macaronesia. Checklist of vascular plants. 4.
revised edition. [Sommerfeltia, 17.]
Botanical Garden & Museum, Oslo, 1993 (ISBN
82-7420-019-5). 295 pages, paper. Price: NoK 250.
The constant effort, by the author, to update their
well-known checklist of the flora of the Atlantic Islands has
been successfully pursued, most appropriately so since the
previous edition is now out of stock. About 200 species and
900 island records have been added since 1985 (see OPTIMA
Newsl. 20-24: (35-36). 1988), yet the marked increase in page
number (and price) is due solely to less economic space use.
In fact, the number of listed species has decreased by 19
units, presumably due to the omission of non-naturalized and
erroneously recorded taxa. The authors have tried to follow
new trends in generic delimitation and nomenclature, e.g. by
merging Micromeria (but curiously, and rather
illogically, not Clinopodium and Calamintha)
with Satureja; separating Nauplius from Asteriscus (but the concomitant renaming of Pallenis
spinosa as A. spinosus is ill advised, since Pallenis as a nomen conservandum is automatically conserved against
its homotypic synonym, Asteriscus); and recombining
all names in use in Taeckholmia under Atalanthus (rather
than seeking nomenclatural stability by proposing
conservation of the former name). These few mildly critical
remarks notwithstanding, the new edition will serve its
purpose in the best tradition of the earlier ones.
- Tomás Romero Martín & Enrique Rico
Hernández Flora de la cuenca del Río
Duratón. [Ruizia, 8.] Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Vitruvio 8,
E-28006 Madrid, 1991 (ISBN 84-00-07015-1). 438 pages,
some black-and-white illustrations, laminated cover.
This critical floristic inventory relates to the Duratón
River basin, largely confined within the Segovia province in
Central Spain: a botanically rich (over 1750 vascular plant
species) yet insufficiently explored area of 1450 km2 now thoroughly studied by the authors. The enumeration
includes locality and specimen citations as well as a short
statement of general distribution, ecology and
phytocoenological affinity. In several cases, further points
are discussed in the form of notes. Brief chapters are
devoted to the climate and geology of the area, to
phytogeographical considerations, and to the vegetation
zonation found.
- Roland Lindacher phanart. Datenbank der
Gefässpflanzen Mitteleuropas. Erklärung der
Kennzahlen, Aufbau und Inhalt. Geobotanisches
Institut der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule,
Stiftung Rübel, in Zürich [Veröffentlichungen, 125],
1995. 436 pages, map, laminated cover. Price: SFr 78.
The core of this book is a printout of the contents of a
database on the Central European vascular flora (c. 7300
taxa: aggregates, species, nothospecies, subspecies), with
taxon-related parameters drawn from the literature. Taxonomy,
nomenclature as well as delimitation of the area covered
follow Ehrendorfers Liste der Gefäßpflanzen
Mitteleuropas. The corresponding data bank was designed
and implemented at the Institute for Ecology of the Berlin
Technical University under the supervision of Herbert Sukopp.
44 data fields (most of them optional) are considered,
including e.g. dispersal and pollination type, flowering
time, conservation status in various countries or states,
German vernacular names, and a variety of ecological
parameters; but not, so far, country-by-country distribution.
Although the mode of presentation is far from user-friendly,
the variety and quantity of the data thus assembled will make
this a valuable compendium.
- Michel Kerguélen Index synonymique de la
flore de France. [Collection patrimoines
naturels, Série patrimoine scientifique, 8.]
Secrétariat de la Faune et de la Flore,
Muséum National dHistoire Naturelle, Paris,
1993 (ISBN 2-86515-076-3). xxviii + 197 pages, 2
black-and-white figures, paper.
The author, being perhaps the single living French
botanist interested and competent in botanical nomenclature,
presents an updated list of (supposedly) correct names for
vascular plant taxa (genera, species, subspecies, varieties,
but not hybrids) found in France in the wild, or widely
cultivated there. He in the same time cross-references all
synonyms or misapplied names used in the five major Floras
concerning France (those by Bonnier & Layens, Coste,
Fournier, Guinochet & Vilmorin, as well as Flora
europaea) to their correct name but
unfortunately provides no pointers in the reverse direction.
Many of the accepted names are unusual, at least in their
generic component, which is mainly a result of
Kerguélens pronounced propensity to splitting genera. Caropsis,
Elide, Kandis are names known to few botanists, their use
depending on the generic concept one adopts; Cacalia, on
the other hand, displaces the familiar Adenostyles for
purely nomenclatural reasons, a change that can hopefully be
avoided by suitable conservation. Finally, adoption of the
erroneous spelling Buphtalmum (which in
Linnaeuss works appears only once, in the index, where
it is due to an obvious slip) makes no sense and is perhaps
unintentional (although it is used consistently in at least
five different places). Five full pages of new combinations
concern, with few exceptions, the infraspecific ranks only.
The book is so condensed and tightly disposed as to be rather
difficult to use, but is unequalled as a mine of critically
checked nomenclatural and distributional data on French
plants.
- Monique Balayer & Laura Napoli Flore de
labbé H. Coste. Nomenclature actualisée sur
Flora europaea. [Ginèbre, N° 9
(spécial).] Société Catalane de Botanique
et dEcologie Végétale, B.P. 2033, F-66011
Perpignan, 1992. 194 pages, paper.
The title on the title-page is incomplete and misleading,
its first part, included in the heading to the text, having
been omitted: "Index de la table alphabétique".
The book is essentially a comparison of the indexes of the
two works. It includes all names mentioned by Coste as plain
synonyms or for minor variants. Flora europaea equivalences
are given only when explicit there. For instance, Lemna
trisulca, being adopted in both works, is so cited; but
the homotypic synonym Staurogeton trisulcus, being
mentioned only by Coste, is qualified as "non F.E."
This is not false, but neither is it helpful. As a
"nomenclatural dictionary", the list may
nevertheless be of some use for those who accept the good old
Coste as their bible; they should, however, be careful not to
assume that nomenclatural equivalences, as given, mean
one-to-one taxonomic congruence.
- Daniel Jeanmonod & Hervé Maurice Burdet (ed.)
Compléments au Prodrome de la flore corse. Annexe
n° 3. Catalogue des plantes vasculaires de la Corse
(seconde édition), par Jacques Gamisans &
Daniel Jeanmonod. Conservatoire et Jardin
botaniques, Ville de Genève, 1993 (ISBN
2-8277-0810-8). 258 pages, map and graphs, laminated
cover. Price: SFr 27.55.
This new, considerably enlarged edition is not only much
more sophisticated in its outfit than its precursor of 1985
(see OPTIMA Newsl. 20-24: (39). 1988), now out of stock; it
also includes additional categories of data (rarity index,
conservation status, indication of endemism). With the
discovery of 188 supplementary taxa since 1985, and
discounting those indicated by error, doubtfully present or
presumed extinct (almost 300), the flora of Corsica now
comprises 2978 taxa of at least varietal status (hybrids
included), or 2092 non-hybrid species. Five (mostly
infraspecific) new combinations are validated to bring
nomenclature into line with current taxonomic views.
- Fabio Conti Prodromo della flora del Parco
Nazionale dAbruzzo. [Liste preliminari
degli organismi viventi nel Parco Nazionale
dAbruzzo, 7.] Ente autonomo Parco
Nazionale dAbruzzo, v. Tito Livio 12, I-00136
Roma, 1995. 127 pages, some black-and-white
illustrations, paper.
In 1993, Franco Tassi has launched a "Project
Biodiversity" aimed at establishing the inventory of all
organismic taxa found in the Abruzzo National Park, a
protected mountain area in southern peninsular Italy with a
surface of over 1000 km2. The checklist of
vascular plants has now been published, comprising 1724
species and subspecies (plus about 200 that are doubtfully
present or have been reported in error). Many of these are
newly recorded here, and among them two were not previously
known from Italy: Lamium galeobdolon subsp. galeobdolon and Allium phthioticum. For each
species, the life form, chorotype, occurrence in the area,
and literature or herbarium source are indicated.
- Pierre Authier Catalogue commenté des
plantes vasculaires de la région des monts Timfi (Epire,
nord-ouest Grèce) (Parc National du Vikos-Aoos et
environs). I. Privately published (P. Authier,
rue de Paris 62, F-93800 Epinay), 1995. [7] +
xvii + 143 pages, drawings, colour photographs,
paper.
The Timfi mountain group is a limestone massif situated in
the Epirus (Ipiros) province of N.W. Greece, skirting 2500
metres of altitude and split by deep gorges and ravines. It
has been visited repeatedly by botanists during the last 100
years, and several plant species have been described from
there, although virtually none is strictly limited to the
area. Mount Timfis flora has conquered the heart and
mind of Pierre Authier, who has for many years been devoting
all his time and energy to its study. The present, privately
published account deals with perhaps one tenth of its
vascular plants, being limited to the families treated in the
first half of volume 1 of Flora europaea. Authier
reveals himself as a very thorough and critical observer, but
also as a cautious judge of his findings, reluctant do draw
hasty conclusions. What he calls a "commented
catalogue" comes very close to a full local flora,
except for the fact that keys and descriptive matter are not
provided methodically under each item but, when present, form
part of often extensive and most informative corollary
discussions and notes. The fair and thorough way in which
past questionable (obviously mostly erroneous) records are
dealt with is a model of its kind. The work is embellished by
11 colour plates with 27 of the authors photographs
illustrating about one tenth of the 203 native or naturalized
accepted species.
- Nicholas J. Turland, Lance Chilton & J. Robert
Press Flora of the Cretan Area. Annotated
checklist and atlas. H.M.S.O., London,
1993 (ISBN 0-11-310043-4). xii + 439 pages, drawings
and maps, laminated cover. Price: £29.95.
Crete and the Karpathos island group together have been
singled out as the Cretan Area in Flora europaea and Med-Checklist, and are rightly famous for their original if relatively
poor flora. This new inventory establishes the total of
species presently known to occur and believed to be native in
the area at 1706, and the rate of species endemism at almost
exactly 10 % (171 species). Turland and Chilton are
excellent experts of the Cretan flora, having collected
extensively all over the island, and they were as qualified
as anyone to write such a book. Such as they have defined
their task, however, it is clearly beyond the capacities of a
small author team, and would in fact have required a much
more broadly based co-operative effort. Their book, as it now
stands, provides a very sound and thorough inventory of the
taxa, but is just a first rough attempt at assessing their
distribution in detail. In other words, the 1738 distribution
maps that make up the better half of the book give, on
average, about 50 % of the distributional record that is
presently available in either published or unpublished form
(as I found when comparing the data held for the genus Silene in the "Flora hellenica database" in Copenhagen
with the published maps). In many ways, it is a pity that the
authors did not take the time and seek co-operation from
those holding relevant information. The inexplicable haste
with which the book has been run through the press is also
reflected in a number of fairly elementary if not immediately
obvious errors, of which the following caught my eye during a
cursory screening: the maps for Cheilanthes persica (N° 34) and Cosentinia vellea (N° 35) were switched;
the map for (188) Minuartia verna subsp. attica appears
under (189) M. wettsteinii, that for the latter under
(190) Moenchia graeca, which in turn is mapped under
N° 188; finally, the maps for (1286) Horstrissea and
(1287) Hydrocotyle were not published at all, and in
their stead one will find second copies of the maps for
(1276) Eryngium maritimum and (1277) E. ternatum. Well,
perhaps its imperfections will make the present book a better
stimulus for ongoing investigation of the Cretan flora than a
more complete and careful version would have been. However
preliminary, it is the result of enthusiastic and dedicated
work, and is as such commendable.
- Loutfy Boulos Flora of Egypt. Checklist. Al Hadara, Cairo, 1995 (ISBN 977-5429-08-0).
xii + 283 pages, map, laminated cover.
This is a synonymic list of 2121 species (27 cultivated Gramineae, the remainder either native or naturalized) and 153
infraspecific taxa of vascular plants growing in Egypt, with
their correct names and principal synonyms, and with a
statement of their occurrence in the 8 biogeographical
divisions of the country. Much progress has been made in the
20 years since the second edition of Vivi Täckholms Student
Flora of Egypt was published, so that an updated
inventory was badly needed. For example, the number of
species known from the Sinai Peninsula has almost doubled
during that time. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, the number of
recorded species is virtually unchanged on balance, the
additions being outweighed by the lumping of taxa and the
elimination of erroneous records. A list of the 56 species
and 5 varieties believed to be endemic to Egypt is included,
and some infraspecific new combinations are validated in a
cursory way (e.g. in Heliotropium, Orobanche, and Cyperus).
- D. Heller & C. C. Heyn Conspectus
florae orientalis. An annotated catalogue of the
flora of the Middle East. Fascicle 5-9. Israel
Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem, 1990,
1991, 1993, 1993, 1994 (ISBN 965-208-094-2, 105-1,
-107-8, -108-6, -109-4). xii + 79, xii + 191, xii +
53, xii + 174, xiv + 171 pages, 5 paper fascicles
each with the same two extra folded maps and a Hebrew
title page.
With the exception of the genus Astragalus, postponed from fasc. 5, and of Hydrangeaceae, omitted
in fasc. 1, the Conspectus is now complete. There will
be a 10th fascicle to include these two missing taxa together
with any other additions and corrections that may have
accumulated in the meantime. When disposed in the order
9-1-5-2-7-3-4-8-6, the nine published issues cover all
vascular plants in the sequence of the Englerian system, and
provide a basic floristic inventory of most of the region of
Boissiers Flora orientalis (to the exclusion of
the European part of Greece). While critical synonymization
has not as a rule been attempted and is a task left for the
monographic revisers in the future, the Conspectus is
nevertheless an invaluable aid for anyone who needs rapid
information on Oriental plant genera and species, including
their distribution not only countrywise but in terms of
rather narrowly delimited geographical units. The plan of the Conspectus has been presented in some detail in the
reviews of earlier fascicles (last in OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29:
(34). 1991). The issues published since include the whole
monocots (fasc. 6), pteridophytes and gymnosperms (fasc. 9),
plus such important dicot families as Caryophyllaceae (fasc.
9), Leguminosae (fasc. 5), Caryophyllaceae (fasc.
9), Umbelliferae (fasc. 7), and Compositae (fasc.
8).
Index
Excursions
- [Ina Dinter] Studienwanderreise Madeira. Blumeninsel im Atlantik. Binder
Studienreisen, Bergheimer Str. 12, D-70499 Stuttgart,
[1993]. 15 loose sheets in folder, 2 black-and-white
illustrations.
Includes list of participants, programme and itinerary
(18-24 June 1993), and plant lists for 6 one-day excursions.
- Ulrich Kull Teneriffa. Allgemeiner
Exkursionsbericht. Kumulative Pflanzenliste der
Exkursionen 1975-1991, zugleich Führer zur
botanisch-geologischen Exkursion der Gesellschaft
für Naturkunde in Württemberg, März 1992.
Biologisches Institut der Universität Stuttgart [Arbeiten
& Mitteilungen, 18], 1992. vi + 385 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, paper.
An unusually detailed excursion guide, comprising three
parts: (1) a general, introductory portion, partly resulting
from seminar work by participants to earlier tours and
covering a variety of subjects such as climate, geology,
hydrography, vegetation, botanical exploration, general
history, and also an inventory of vertebrate animal species
and a list of ornamental plants; (2) a detailed, commented
itinerary of the planned 10-day 1992 excursion; and (3)
consolidated lists of plants observed or collected in various
localities of the islands during the foregoing 17 years, with
reference to numbered specimens deposited in the herbarium at
Stuttgart (STU). Any German-speaking naturalist visiting
Tenerife will find this a most valuable companion on his or
her trip.
- Wolf Stieglitz Flora mallorquina. Dokumentation
einer Studienreise. Sektion Botanik,
Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein Wuppertal, 1992. vi +
91 pages, coloured frontispiece, black-and-white
illustrations, 50 extra plates of colour photographs,
paper.
The noteworthy result of a botanical groups
organized tour through Mallorca, 14 to 28 April 1991. The
botanical inventories of 60 collecting localities are given,
together with a cumulative catalogue of all 655 vascular
plants found. A list of bryophytes is appended. 159 colour
photographs, including some micrographs, illustrate the
vegetation and many of its constituent species (the colour
plates are said to be lacking in part of the printed
edition). Some of the noteworthy findings are commented upon
separately, including seven new island records. Unfortunately
the whereabouts of voucher specimens are not stated. A few of
the photographed plants are apparently misidentified, in
particular "Halimium halimifolium" (Fig. 68,
is Tuberaria guttata), "Althaea
cannabina" (Fig. 69; is A. hirsuta), and"Spergularia cf. rubra subsp. atheniensis" (Fig.
83, more likely Rhodalsine geniculata).
- Hennig Haeupler (ed.) Exkursion zum
Peloponnes im Rahmen des S-Blocks
"Mediterrane Ökosysteme am Beispiel des
Peloponnes" SS 1990. Seminarbeiträge,
Exkursionsprotokolle und Artenlisten.
Arbeitsgruppe Botanik, Spezielle Botanik,
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 1991. 280 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, paper.
A group of 15 students of Bochum University and as many
accompanying persons visited Peloponnesus and the islet of
Elafonisos around Easter 1991. The present, quite impressive
volume includes the papers presented by prospective
participants during a preparatory seminar (on a variety of
mostly non-botanical topics, e.g from ancient history and the
earth sciences) and the day-by-day diary of the excursion,
lively write-ups by the students themselves in which plant
lists alternate with locality data and a plenty of anecdotic
details. A cumulative plant list at the end, including
reference to specimen locations, provides easy and direct
access to relevant floristic data.
- Walter Strasser Botanische Streifzüge
durch das nordöstliche Griechenland. Frühjahr
1992. Privately published, Steffisburg, 1992.
[1] + 85 sheets, maps and drawings, stapled.
- Walter Strasser Nördl. Peloponnes +
Euböa: botanische Streifzüge 1993 mit
Bestimmungsschlüsseln für die griechischen Gagea- und Ornithogalum-Arten. Privately
published, Steffisburg, 1994. [1] + 76 sheets, maps
and drawings, stapled.
- Walter Strasser Westl. Peloponnes +
Taygetosgebirge, botanische Streifzüge 1994 mit
Bestimmungsschlüsseln für die griechischen Trifolium- und Bromus-Arten. Privately published,
Steffisburg, 1994. [1] + 51 sheets, maps and
drawings, stapled.
Since they were first presented in this column (OPTIMA
Newsl. 12/13: 52. 1982) excursion accounts in Strassers
characteristic and unchanging style have been forthcoming
annually with great regularity (for the last series, see
OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (44-45). 1991). They all are sources of
critically digested floristic and chorological information,
and each has keys to polymorphic and critical plant genera
appended (they are mentioned in the subtitle from 1993
onward). The 1992 account has keys for Greek Alyssum and Berteroa (new), Greek and W. Anatolian Geranium and Erodium (reprinted with minor changes from 1990); the Gagea and Ornithogalum key (1993) was substantially
changed, and the drawings remade, as compared to the first
(1986) edition; the same applies, in 1994, to the brome-grass
key (first published 1989), whereas the one for Trifolium is
new. The 1992 account, relating to N.E. Greece and the island
of Thasos, has a plant list from the Vikos gorge (Epirus)
appended. The 1993 and 1994 excursions yielded a new record
for the flora of Greece (Linum nervosum, from Evvia),
as well as first Peloponnesus records of Rosularia
serrata, Ophioglossum vulgatum and Silene remotiflora, among others.
- Ina Dinter Samos. Pflanzenliste Samos vom
16.-30. April 1993. Privately duplicated,
D-74348 Lauffen, 1993. 28 stapled sheets.
- Ina Dinter Reisetagebuch Frühling auf
Samos. Botanische Exkursion vom 02.05.-16.05.1994. [Natur-Exkursionen, K 9405].
Privately assembled/duplicated, D-74348 Lauffen,
1994. 29 loose sheets in folder, without pagination.
Both (apparently commercial) botanical tours for which the
above two leaflets were written visited the same localities,
though in different sequence. Both leaflets include species
lists for each site or area, and a cumulative list with page
(in 1993) or locality reference (in 1994) at the end. They
are based on the authors own collections, kept in her
private herbarium, and include otherwise unpublished,
original floristic information.
- Walter Lang Pflanzenliste der Studienreise
nach Israel vom 27.3.-12.4.1988. Privately
published, [Erpolzheim], undated. 9 stapled sheets.
- Walter Lang Pflanzenliste der Studienreise
in die S-Türkei vom 17.3.-1.4.1989.
Privately published, [Erpolzheim], undated. 6 stapled
sheets.
- Walter Lang Pflanzenliste der Studienreise
nach Nordzypern vom 1.4.-15.4.1990.
Privately published, [Erpolzheim], undated. 11
stapled sheets.
"Nude" plant lists, all of similar external
outfit but differently arranged. The 1988 leaflet has the
plants listed alphabetically by localities (the letter H
obviously denoting the presence of a specimen in the
authors private herbarium). In 1989 a single list of
species, alphabetical within families, is given, with
localities and (collecting?) dates appended. The 1990 trip is
designated as "Studienreise des KVHS Germersheim"
and also includes collections by a Ch. Schmidt; the species
arrangement is similar but locality reference is numerical, a
separate locality list being provided at the end.
Index
Chorology
- Jaakko Jalas & Juha Suominen Atlas
florae europaeae. Distribution of vascular plants
in Europe. 9. Paeoniaceae to Capparaceae. 10. Cruciferae (Sisymbrium to Aubrieta). Committee for Mapping the Flora of Europe
& Societas Botanica Fennica Vanamo, Helsinki,
1991, 1994 (ISBN 951-9108-08-4, -09-2). 110, 224
pages, maps, paper.
Most of fascicle 9 is devoted to the treatment of Papaveraceae, and in addition, Berberidaceae. Fasc. 10 brings
the first half of the Cruciferae. The two issues
contain 156 and 324 maps, respectively, and as is traditional
(see e.g. OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (45-46). 1991), they both
include countless critical updatings of the Flora europaea treatments based on a virtually complete survey of even
the most recent literature. The Atlas is therefore
much more than a source of information on plant distribution:
it is a basic compendium of and guide to the European
floristic and taxonomic literature.
- Hermann Meusel & Eckehart J. Jäger (ed.)
Vergleichende Chorologie der
zentraleuropäischen Flora. Text + Karten,
Literatur, Register. Band III. Fischer, Jena,
Stuttgart & New York, 1992 (ISBN 3-334-00411-2).
Pages ix + 333, ix + 422-688, maps (mostly in two
colours), two volumes with hard covers.
Completion of this monument among chorological literature
was anxiously awaited by many and is a major milestone for
descriptive and interpretative biogeography. Some of
Meusels novel methodological approaches, e.g. the
diagnostic area designations invented by him, may become
quite popular in biogeo-speech now that its bases are fully
laid out. Volume three is largely devoted to a single major
family, Compositae, with in addition some medium-sized
gamopetalous families such as Rubiaceae, Valerianaceae,
Dipsacaceae, and Campanulaceae. It also includes
the long missed bibliography to vol. II as well as the badly
needed general index of scientific names whose absence had
made the two earlier volumes so difficult to use. The
complete work gives full or cursory treatment to c. 17,000
species of vascular plants, of which c. 8000 have their area
represented in one of the 2250 distribution maps. This, along
with Hulténs various Atlases, is by far the largest
single set of total distribution areas ever compiled (whereas
partial chorological atlases, limited to specific areas,
become increasingly popular). Chorology and terminology are
only two of the many salient features of this work, which
abounds in considerations of chorogenesis and evolution as
related to natural (and man-made) environmental factors and
their variation in space and time. It is impossible, in a few
lines, to do full justice to so impressive an achievement as
the present one. It is, as I see it, an incredibly rich mine
of facts and challenging ideas, and a fathomless source from
which new assumptions and conjectures can be derived.
- Mauricio Velayos, Felipe Castilla & Roberto
Gamarra Corología ibérica, I. [Archivos
de flora ibérica, 2.] Real Jardín
Botánico, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, Madrid, 1991. 393 pages, map, laminated
cover.
This is a first partial printout generated from a database
of published plant records from the Iberian Peninsula,
compiled and held at the Madrid Botanic Garden (see also item
N° 99, below). Of the over 400,000 data-sets presently
included c. 60,000 are here listed, being those that
originate from ten journals published in Barcelona. The data
concern vascular plants only, are given by species and
province (the province abbreviations are nowhere explained
and have to be looked up in, e.g., Flora iberica),
with page reference to the original source. Those using this
index should be careful to note its limitations. Not even of
the ten scanned journals have complete runs been taken into
consideration (e.g., only the first four volumes of Folia
botanica miscellanea), and the botanically best known
Barcelona periodical, Collectanea botanica, has been
excluded. The index is mainly a directory to the more remote
20th century Catalan literature. Also, duplication of entries
caused by, e.g., variants in author citation have not been
completely eliminated, and were in some cases (e.g., Delphinium
nanum) erroneously introduced.
- [Oriol de Bolòs & Angel M. Romo (ed.)]
Atlas corològic de la flora vascular dels Països
Catalans. Vol. 1, 2. Institut
dEstudis Catalans, Carme 47, E-08001 Barcelona,
1985-1987, 1991 (ISBN 84-7283-175-2 [vol. 2]). [106]
Bristol board sheets, [415] pages, maps 1-103,
104-306 with text; ring file (vol. 1), paper with
dust-cover (vol. 2).
Maps 1-26 were issued in 1985 under the title
"Corologia de la flora vascular dels Països
Catalans" (see OPTIMA Newsl. 20-24: (45-46). 1988). Maps
27-103 are dated 1986 but were issued together with a title
page for vol. 1, dated "1985-1987". Maps 104-306
were published on normal paper, in 1991, with a title page
bearing the names of the two editors (absent from vol. 1). In
vol. 1, each map bears a numerical reference to the
corresponding taxon in Flora europaea, under which in
vol. 2 a second reference is added, to the species number in
the Flora manual dels Països Catalans. Apart from
such details of presentation, which may be bibliographically
relevant, the scope and layout of the work has remained
unchanged, and it is still possible to cut the maps apart and
arrange them in a different (systematic or alphabetical)
sequence for those who so wish. The arrangement of the maps
is alphabetical within the 1985 (1-26) and 1987 (27-103)
runs, but roughly taxonomic (with many anomalies) in vol. 2.
The sequence of publication follows no obvious order, but a
focus has clearly been placed on selected families (in the
1987 run, in particular, Caprifoliaceae and Ericaceae; in vol. 2, Boraginaceae, Primulaceae, and Solanaceae). Speedy progress of this important
distributional Atlas is much to be desired.
- Pierre Dupont Atlas partiel de la Flore de
France. [Collection patrimoines naturels,
Série patrimoine génétique, 3.]
Secrétariat de la Faune et de la Flore, Muséum
National dHistoire Naturelle, Paris, 1990 (ISBN
2-86515-062-3). 442 pages, drawings, maps, paper.
The distribution maps, for France (including Corsica and
Andorra), of 645 species of vascular plants are presented in
this volume. They are the result of many years of efforts, by
Dupont and his staff as well as by c. 300 correspondents
active in the field, with but minimal support from public
sources, and without adequate official encouragement. Dupont,
in his preface, declares himself proud and disappointed in
the same time: proud of what has been achieved under so
precarious conditions, and disappointed at the fact that just
about 15 % of the native vascular flora of France has so
far been covered. The maps use a UTM-based grid with meshes
of 20 km ´ 20 km, because the data, while suited for mapping
by quadrants of these meshes, were not sufficient in quantity
to justify the finer scale. Even so, the maps give an
excellent and apparently faithful impression of species
distribution, including possible decline since 1960 (which
may of course, at least in part, be a decline in number of
field botanists not just of natural habitats). The prospects
of a continuation of Duponts efforts by others are, as
it seems, rather uncertain. However, now that mapping has
been proved to be feasible and produce excellent results, one
may perhaps hope that support enabling continuation of the
present scheme may at last be forthcoming.
- Livio Poldini Atlante corologico delle
piante vascolari nel Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Inventario
floristico regionale. Direzione Regionale
delle Foreste e dei Parchi, Regione Autonoma
Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Udine 1991. 899 pages, mostly
coloured graphs and maps, colour photographs, cloth
with dust-cover in cardboard case.
This is, to my knowledge, the most gorgeously beautiful
and best produced chorological atlas to have been published
so far: a real luxury object among its more modest congeners
on the bookshelf. It is also the first complete chorological
atlas for any Italian region. The area covered is the
northeasternmost corner of Italy, comprising a portion of the
S.E. Alps, the alluvial plains of the Piave, Tagliamento and
Isonzo rivers, and the coastal strip and hills around Trieste
and Gorizia. The number of species mapped is 2780. The
distributional record, within the rather wide grid defined
for the purposes of the Central European mapping scheme and
covering the whole territory with a mere 78 meshes, is mapped
in black on a colour background illustrating the altitudinal
zones. Two loose transparent sheets with contour maps showing
environmental parameters can be used, alone or pairwise, as
overlays to interpret the distributional patterns shown. A
concise but densely written introductory part analyses the
results of the survey phytogeographically, by chorological
elements, diversity parameters, endemism, anthropochory, etc.
The book is embellished by 79 superb colour photographs of
plants, plant communities and landscapes. Poldini has not
only proved his professional skill, organizational competence
and untiring drive by this work, but also his good taste and
his concern for the needs and wishes of his readers. He and
his whole team are to be warmly congratulated for the result.
- Adam Boratynski, Kazimierz Browicz & Jerzy
Zielinski Chorology of trees and shrubs in
Greece. [Second edition supplemented and
expanded.] Institute of Dendrology, Polish
Academy of Sciences, Poznan/Kórnik, 1992 (ISBN
83-85599-04-6 [hard cover], -05-3 [paper]). 286
pages, 270 maps. Price: US$33 (hard cover) or 25
(paper).
The fact that this is a second edition is timidly hidden,
being mentioned only in the impressum and introduction. The
first, xeroxed edition (see OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (46). 1991),
with only 200 maps, was much more modest and had been
produced in a small number of copies (120) only, but its
slightly less size-reduced maps are neater than their new
versions which are rather unevenly printed, sometimes too
pale or blurred. A cursory comparison showed no additions to
the previously published maps but some (essentially
linguistic) editing of the explanatory texts. The 70 new maps
concern species of the genera Arthrocnemum, Capparis,
Chamaecytisus (2), Cistus, Convolvulus, Erica,
Euphorbia (2), Genista (7), Halocnemum, Hedera,
Helianthemum, Juniperus (4), Laburnum, Lavatera,
Lembotropis, Lonicera (3), Lycium (2), Nicotiana,
Noaea, Phoenix, Picea, Pinus (5), Polygonum,
Ptilostemon (2), Putoria, Pyracantha, Pyrus, Quercus (6), Rhamnus (2), Rosmarinus, Rubus (2), Salix,
Salvia (2), Sarcopoterium, Solanum, Syringa, Tamarix (2), Tilia (2), Ulmus (2), and Withania.
- Kazimierz Browicz Chorology of trees and
shrubs in South-West Asia and adjacent regions. Vol.
8-10. Vol. 8: Polish Scientific publishers
& Institute of Dendrology, Polish Academy of
Sciences, Warszawa & Poznan, 1991 (ISBN
81-01-10528-3); vol. 9: Institute of Dendrology,
Polish Academy of Sciences, & Sorus, Poznan &
Daszewice, 1992 (ISBN 83-85599-02-9); vol. 10:
Bogucki & Institute of Dendrology, Polish Academy
of Sciences, Poznan, 1994 (ISBN 83-86001-02-x). 86,
85, 100 pages, each with 50 maps, paper.
Browiczs impressive series of maps of Oriental woody
plants is apparently to end with the 10th fascicle and 550th
individual map. At least this is what the author tells us in
the introduction to vol. 10, in which there also is a
cumulative index to all species so far mapped. But coverage
of the subject, as Browicz also states, is far from complete,
and one may therefore hope that either he or someone of his
research team might perhaps consider to continue. Three new
issues have been published since N° 7 was reviewed (see
OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (47). 1991), each with a different main
publisher. They treat a variety of genera and families but
follow the familiar pattern. Only in vol. 10 can one discern
special, focal topics: a revision of Oriental Ephedra, authored
by Freitag & Meier-Stolte, with 14 relevant maps in
which, contrary to normal style, a distinction is made
between specimens seen and mere literature records; and an
account of 10 Tamarix species, by Zielinski.
Index
Karyology
- Nicole Galland Recherche sur lorigine
de la flore orophile du Maroc. Etude cytologique
et cytogéographique. Institut Scientifique [Travaux,
série botanique, 35], Université Mohammed V,
Rabat, "1988" [1991]. [4] + 168 + [4]
pages, black-and-white illustrations, laminated
cover.
Following extensive field work in the Atlas Mountains of
Morocco, the author has studied the chromosomes of 300
high-mountain taxa corresponding to about half of the
Maghrebine high-mountain flora. Her results are presented and
discussed in detail. Her analysis, conducted along the lines
of the Favager school tradition, concludes to the old age of
much of this flora, and sheds new light on the likely history
of Mediterranean mountain floras in general. The book, which
corresponds to Nicole Gallands PhD thesis, has had a
somewhat tormented publication history: the Universitys nil obstat was given in April 1987, and the year
printed on the title page is 1988; however, the date of legal
deposit stated at the end is 1990, and the book became
actually available, through the author, in early August 1991.
- J. F. Ardévol Gonzales, L. Borgen & P. Pérez
de Paz Checklist of chromosome numbers counted
in Canarian vascular plants. [Sommerfeltia, 18.] Botanical Garden & Museum, Oslo, 1993
(ISBN 82-7420-020-9). 59 pages, paper. Price: NoK 80.
This chromosome survey updates, for the Canary Islands,
the information in Liv Borgens mimeographed "Checklist
of chromosome numbers counted in Macaronesian vascular
plants". References to counts on Canary Island
endemics of unstated provenance are included. The originally
used nomenclature was updated to match that of Hansen &
Sundings new edition of their Checklist (item
N° 66, above). Omission of doubtful records, or correction
of erroneous identifications, is justified in an appendix.
- Antonio Martín Ciudad Números
cromosomáticos de plantas vasculares ibéricas, I. [Archivos de flora iberica, 1.] Real
Jardín Botánico, Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 1991. v + 202
pages, laminated cover.
Funds from a programme in favour of unemployed youth have
been used to build up databases related to the Flora Iberica
Project at the Madrid Botanical Garden. The present volume,
being the first of a series planned to be continued at
irregular intervals (see also item N° 91, above), aims at
making available the information of one such database to the
authors of Flora iberica accounts, and to botanists in
general. The compiler, to whom the work is here credited in
conformity with the title page, is not a botanist but the EDP
technician responsible for maintaining the database. The data
themselves were initially assembled by Enrique Valdés
Bermejo (who signs as one of the "editors",
together with Santiago Castroviejo), with several others
adding to them subsequently. The result is impressive, looks
thoroughly reliable, and promises to be most useful. Each of
the listed chromosome counts, indexed by the name originally
used, is referenced to one of the 867 papers from which
information was derived. Whenever possible, the provenance of
the material studied is stated in terms, not only of country
but province. All literature received at Madrid by May 1991
has been taken into consideration. It is planned to have
updates published at regular intervals. This is a most
welcome first step toward the Mediterranean chromosome count
inventory planned by OPTIMAs Commission for
Karyosystematics.
- Julio E. Pastor Díaz (ed.) Atlas
cromosómico de la flora vascular de Andalucía
occidental. Universidad de Sevilla [Publicaciones,
serie: ciencias, 37-1992], 1993 (ISBN
84-7405-985-2). 542 pages, hard cover.
While limited to taxa included in the Flora vascular de
Andalucía occidental of Valdés & al. (see OPTIMA
Newsl. 25-29: (22-23). 1988), the present chromosome atlas
includes far more than a mere subset of the data in the
foregoing work. First, it is not restricted to counts made on
Iberian plants but endeavours to list all counts ever
published for the relevant taxa; second, it also includes
reference to counts that are not documented as to their
origin, such as, in particular, those quoted in the Flora itself.
It is a pity, though, that in the latter case the opportunity
has not been seized to supply the missing data, which the
author could certainly have easily procured. As it is, the
present book is largely repetitive of information that is
easily accessible, though in non-cumulated form, through the
well known world chromosome lists of Fedorov, Moore,
Goldblatt, etc.
Index
Ecology
- Heinrich Walter & Siegmar-W. Breckle
Ökologie der Erde. Geo-Biosphäre. 4.
Spezielle Ökologie der gemässigten und arktischen
Zonen ausserhalb Euro-Nordasiens. Zonobiom
IV-IX. Fischer, Stuttgart, 1991 (ISBN
3-437-20371-1). xvi + 586 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, hard covers. Price: DM 48.
Heinrich Walter, the founder of this monumental
four-volume manual on the vegetation of the globe, died in
October 1989, within a month from having written the foreword
to the present, final part. Of the whole work, this is the
item that will most interest Mediterranean-minded botanists,
since on its first 180 pages it treats what is here referred
to as the "zonobiome IV": the Mediterranean-type
areas with winter rains and summer drought. Their
presentation in a global context, both in the frame of the
surrounding biomes and with steady inter-continental
comparison among themselves, is fascinating reading for those
familiar with the German language. The reader will appreciate
the generous illustration with photographs, maps and graphs,
and will, in view of the most reasonable price, have to
accept monochromy (although one will often regret it). Other
biomes treated in this volume are those of warm-temperate
climate (V), of temperate woody areas of N. America and E.
Asia (VI), of semi-arid temperate to arid continental
climates, mainly of America (VII), of American cold-temperate
climate (VIII), and of Arctic/Antarctic climate (IX). A
particular chapter is devoted to the Himalayas.
- Werner Nezadal Unkrautgesellschaften der
Getreide- und Frühjahrshackfruchtkulturen (Stellarietea
mediae) im mediterranen Iberien. [Dissertationes
botanicae, 143.] Cramer, Berlin &
Stuttgart, 1989 (ISBN 3-443-64052-4). [4] + 205
pages, maps, 19 folded extra tables in pouch, paper.
This phytosociological study of field weed communities in
Spain and Portugal is based on the analysis of almost 1100
relevés from localities scattered throughout the Iberian
Peninsula with the exception of the north-west and the
northern coastal provinces. One of its aims is to compare the
W. Mediterranean weed communities with the central European
ones. The concept of vicariant syntaxa is found to be useful
when species of limited distributional ranges are concerned;
this notion, which so far had been applied only at the
association level, is here extended to higher ranking
vegetation units such as alliances, orders, and classes.
- Michael Richter Untersuchungen zur
Vegetationsentwicklung und zum Standortwandel auf
mediterranen Rebbrachen. [Braun-Blanquetia, 4.] Dipartimento di Botanica ed Ecologia
dellUniversità, Camerino, & Station de
Phytosociologie, Bailleul, 1989. 196 pages, maps and
graphs, 1 folded insert, 4 folded tables in pouch,
paper.
Vineyard vegetation and the dynamics of vegetation
succession on vine fallows were studied primarily in three
Italian test areas representing the thermomediterranean
(Saline, Eolian Islands), meso- and supramediterranean zone
(Corniglia and Pignone, both in Cinque Terre, E. Liguria).
Several other mediterranean sites, scattered from Spain and
Algeria to Malta and Greece, were examined for comparison.
Regeneration of seminatural woodland is most rapid in the
thermo- and slowest in the supramediterranean zone.
Index
Regional
studies of flora and vegetation
- Atlas cartográfico de los pinares canarios. II.
Tenerife (by Pedro L. Pérez de Paz, Marcelino J.
del Arco Aguilar, Octavio Rodríguez Delgado, M.
Salas Pascual & Wolfredo Wildpret de la Torre). III.
La Palma (by Marcelino J. del Arco Aguilar, Pedro
L. Pérez de Paz, Octavio Rodríguez Delgado, Juan R.
Acebes Ginovés, Manuel V. Marrero Gómez &
Wolfredo Wildpret de la Torre).
Viceconsejería del Medio Ambiente, Gobierno de
Canarias, [Santa Cruz de Tenerife], 1992, 1994 (ISBN
84-606-0440-3, 84-600-8954-1). 228, 160 pages, partly
coloured graphs and maps, colour photographs, 43, 6
colour maps 1 : 50,000 on extra plates, 1,
1 folded colour map 1: 100,000, laminated cover.
This is much more than a series of maps of Canary Island
pine woods: each is a complete, well documented and superbly
illustrated monograph of these forests, their history and
maintenance, and the associated plant communities. The
natural woodlands of Pinus canariensis, which are well
preserved on La Palma, had been much reduced by human action
on Tenerife; they have been largely rebuilt by reforestation
since 1940 and now constitute the major renewable natural
resource of both islands. Pinus radiata plantations,
and to a minor extent those of Mediterranean pines (P.
halepensis, P. pinea), also exist. The whole work is
planned to consist of 4 parts, of which the first (of 1990;
not seen) concerns the islands of La Gomera and El Hierro,
and the last (forthcoming) will be devoted to Gran Canaria
and the few plantations on the eastern islands.
- Eusebio Cano Carmona & Ángeles González
Martín Estudios básicos para el conocimiento
de la flora de Sierra Morena. Facultad de
Ciencias Experimentales, Jaén, 1992 (ISBN
84-600-8024-2). [10] + 175 pages, laminated cover.
The Sierra Morena is a large system of low, mainly
siliceous mountains cutting through much of southern Spain in
a west-to-east direction, from the Portuguese border to the
eastern limits of the provinces of Jaén and Ciudad Reál.
The present inventory of its flora and vegetation is a
curious case: it was apparently compiled entirely from the
literature. From what they tell us, the authors may never
have set their foot in the Sierra Morena, or seen any of the
plants to which they refer. They have combined the data they
found into a checklist of the vascular flora, and for each
taxon they give known distribution by province and sector,
"frequency" (based on the number of literature
citations!), habitat and vegetation type. Of the 2371 listed
taxa, some as they write are doubtful records, but they
wont tell us which. Lists of selected [Iberian]
endemics (the 138, out of 187, for which concrete
distributional data were found), of other rare plants
occurring in the area, and of plant communities, are also
provided.
- Daniel Sánchez Mata Flora y vegetación
del macizo oriental de la Sierra de Gredos (Avila).
Institución "Gran Duque de Alba",
Diputación Provincial de Avila, [1989?] (ISBN
84-86930-17-0). 440 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, laminated cover.
The Sierra de Gredos is a range of high mountains, to the
west of Madrid, belonging to the Spanish Central System. The
present book is largely a vegetation monograph, with detailed
description of phytosociological units supported by extensive
tabular material and with many schematic transects showing
the zonality of vegetation patterns. There is a list of plant
taxa at the end, including some synonymy, but unfortunately
it is not cross-referenced to the tables and plant
communities and cannot serve as a key to the floristic
information contained in the work.
- Josep Nuet i Badia, Josep M. Panareda i Clopés
& Àngel M. Romo i Díez La vegetació de
Catalunya. [Descoberta, 1.] Eumo,
Miramarges 4, E-08500 Vic, 1991 (ISBN 84-7602-753-2).
153 pages, maps and profiles, black-and-white and
colour photographs, laminated cover.
A plain-language introduction to the main vegetation types
of Catalonia, written for the non-specialist, with 16 colour
photographs illustrating selected examples. The more
important associations (and subassociations) are represented
by tabular lists of characteristic and companion species. An
ingenious indexing system makes it possible to use the
booklet as a field guide for the rapid identification of
plant communities. This looks like an excellent idea, and a
workable one, too provided of course one knows the
relevant plants. An example to be followed, deserving to be
extended to many other regions!
- J. Carreras Raurell, E. Carrillo Ortuño, R. M.
Masalles Saumell, J. M. Ninot Sugrañes & J. Vigo
Bonada El poblament vegetal de les valls de
Barravés i de Castanesa. I flora i
vegetació; II mapa de vegetació. [Acta
botanica barcinonensia, 42-43.]
Departament de Biología Vegetal (Botánica),
Facultat de Biología, Universitat de Barcelona,
1993. 392, 32 pages, some maps and graphs, 1 folded
colour map 1 : 50,000 in pouch, paper.
An area of c. 280 km2 in the central Spanish
Pyrenees, north of Lleida, corresponding to the upper river
basin of the Noguera Ribagorçana, has been studied in-depth
with respect to its flora and vegetation. In the first part
of this twin publication, an introductory portion is followed
by a list of the vascular plant species present in the area,
with altitudinal ranges and concise numerical locality data
(by 10 km ´ 10 km UTM grid squares then by relevé number),
and by a thorough vegetation analysis following the
Braun-Blanquet system, with plentiful tabular data. The
second part is devoted to the explication of the (included)
vegetation map of the area.
- Robert Salanon & Jean-Félix Gandioli
Cartographie floristique en réseau des ravins et des
vallons côtiers ou affluents du Var dans les
environs de Nice, Alpes-Maritimes. 1. Texte et
index; 2. Atlas. [Biocosme mésogéen, 8(3).]
Ville de Nice, 1991. Pages 71-177, 179-394,
maps, graphs, black-and-white photographs, loose
transparent overlay, paper.
This special issue of the journal Biocosme mésogéen will
pose a problem to many librarians and bookbinders by being
twice the page size of a normal fascicle, even of the same
volume. In many a way, it is a fully independent work. The
authors have devoted many years to the methodical exploration
and inventorying of a very peculiar habitat: the network of
gullies and gorges that has been deeply cut by running water
into the conglomerate rocks of the hilly area just north of
the city of Nizza, on the left side of the river Var. These
very special, moist and dimly lit biota house a flora of a
rather unique kind, rich in ferns, mosses and liverworts,
some of which are very rare. The locally abundant relic
species Carex grioletii stands out among the
phanerogamic species. Urban expansion and its corollary, in
particular the misuse of such gullies as garbage deposits,
threaten these habitats increasingly. By the present,
detailed inventory, the authors want to focus public and
governmental awareness on the urgency of the problem and the
gravity of the threatening loss. Maps (in a somewhat
irrational order, intended to reflect loosely defined
ecological groupings) are provided for c. 300 species,
including 20 bryophytes and one charophyte. The scale used is
very detailed, with unit areas of c. 250 m ´ 180 m.
Distribution dots are not positioned centrally in each
rectangle but, more naturally, follow the course of the
gullies, a technique that enlivens the presentation and
permits to sometimes map two species together, with different
symbols.
- Robert Salanon, Jean-Félix Gandioli, Vincent
Kulesza & Jean-Christophe Pintaud La flore
littorale des Alpes-Maritimes: évolution depuis
le XIXème siècle et bilan actuel. [Biocosme
mésogéen, 11(3 & 4).] Ville de Nice,
1995. Pages 53-193, 195-329, maps, 2 colour
photographs, paper.
A recent, thorough inventory of the halophilous,
salt-tolerant and coastal freshwater flora of an important
segment of the Mediterranean coast of France, with maps of
extant species by one-hundredth-degree squares (1000 m ´ 722
m). A concomitant search of herbaria and literature permits
assessment of the amount of loss, which is almost total in
the case of the aquatics and very heavy for plants of the
sandy shores and salt marshes, but lesser for the rocky coast
inhabitants. The work, by its thoroughness and clear
presentation, can serve as a model for studies of this kind.
Its main conclusion is that protection of the Iles de Lérins
(facing Cannes), where most of the diversity still survives,
should be perfected and extended.
- Daniel Jeanmonod & Hervé Maurice Burdet (ed.)
Compléments au Prodrome de la flore corse. Annexe
n° 2. La végétation de la Corse, par
Jacques Gamisans. Conservatoire et Jardin
botaniques, Ville de Genève, 1991 (ISBN
2-8277-0808-6). 391 pages, black-an-white
illustrations, laminated cover. Price: SFr 45.90.
A complete textbook on the vegetation of Corsica, with an
introductory methodological section and general chapters on
the geography, climate and geology of the island as well as
phytogeography, endemism and chloridogenesis. The main
portion, devoted to the description of the vegetation belts
and of their plant associations, is written in a lively,
easily readable style, and is embellished by a large number
of original drawings of characteristic constituent plants, by
two Catalan artists (E. Sierra i Ràfols, J. Nuet i Badia).
The book, written by the leading contemporary expert on the
subject, is a remarkable synthesis based on first-hand
knowledge and on the results of earlier authors, such as
Litardière and Malcuit.
- Livio Poldini La vegetazione del Carso
isontino e triestino. Studio del paesaggio
vegetale fra Trieste, Gorizia e i territori
adiacenti. Lint, Trieste, 1989 (ISBN
88-85083-30-7). 315 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, colour photographs, 1 folded colour
vegetation map 1 : 50,000 with two insets
1 : 25,000, hard cover and dust-cover.
The karst plateaux and hills that extend on the left of
the Isonzo River, south of Gorizia, and continue southward
all along the narrow coastal area at whose centre Trieste is
situated, are the only really Illyrian parts of Italy. This
tiny strip of land, being the countrys northeasternmost
extension, has landscapes of great beauty and has conserved
much of its natural charm and riches in spite of heavy
pressures of urban and industrial development. The present
book includes part of the results of a floristic and
vegetational survey performed by Poldini and his group,
between 1980 and 1984, with the goal of establishing a modern
inventory, assessing the conservation value and recognizing
the extent of threat and damage. Examples of distributional
patterns are given in the introduction, showing the
organization of the chorological database, but the main body
of the book is devoted to a detailed description of the
vegetation and its units. The profuse illustration, mostly by
excellent colour photographs, and the thorough documentation
by graphs and tabular relevés make this book both pleasant
and instructive to read: a worthy monument to the areas
natural beauty and a potent argument for its safeguard.
- Francesco Maria Raimondo & al. (ed.) I
boschi di Sicilia. Arbor, v. Enrico
Albanese 114, Palermo, 1992. 303 pages, drawings,
2-coloured map, colour photographs, hard cover and
dust-cover in cardboard case. Price: Lit 135,000.
Sicilian woodlands have seen their total surface trebled
since the all-time low at the end of World War II; yet, the
10 % of the islands total surface they presently
occupy is a low rate as compared to the Italian average.
Forests are therefore something rare and special in Sicily, a
feature to be treasured by local people and authorities. Not
only to like but to better know them is the basic message of
this splendid book. The combined efforts of 15 authors have
resulted in a comprehensive anthology on subjects like
structure and function of natural and man-made woods, their
ecological niches and their inhabitants, their relation to
man in terms of economy, history and folklore. A gifted
nature photographer, Franco Barbagallo, has contributed most
of the 211 often full-page, splendidly reproduced colour
photographs which, grouped together in three large blocks
like a three-movement rhapsody, are at the books core,
illustrating first the various Sicilian woodland areas one by
one, then the forest in its seasonal features and through its
animals and individual trees, and last its function as a part
of human life and cultural tradition. The concluding chapter
is strictly botanical, consisting of the characterization,
through structured texts and analytical drawings, of 39
species of Sicilian forest trees.
- Francesco Maria Raimondo Studio e
catalogazione della vegetazione e delle emergenze
botaniche ed ambientali del Monte Pellegrino
(Palermo). Assessorato Parchi, Verde e
Arredo Urbano, Comune di Palermo, 1992. 222 + [1]
pages, drawings, maps, graphs, black-and-white and
colour photographs on 20 extra plates, folded colour
vegetation map c. 1 : 8000, paper.
One of the sanctuaries of early Sicilian botany, and the
classical site for many an endemic species, Monte Pellegrino
is also a prominent landmark overtowering the Gulf of
Palermo. The squarely built, 600 m high limestone rock houses
a rich, peculiar flora on the vast cliff systems of its steep
flanks. Its protection as a natural park having been
proposed, it has recently undergone a detailed floristic and
phytosociological investigation whose results are presented
in this shapely volume. It includes a checklist of the
vascular flora, with grid-square related distributional
details and citation of historical sources; lists of mosses,
liverworts, lichens and non-lichenized fungi; physiognomic
description and tabular characterization of vegetation units;
and detailed presentation (often accompanied by full-page
drawings) of a selection of species worth highlighting. 63
photographs, including 14 in colour, show typical landscapes
and representatives of the flora.
- Slobodan Jovanovic Ekoloka studija
ruderalne flore i vegetacije Beograda. [English
summary: Ecological study of ruderal flora and
vegetation in the City of Belgrade.]
Bioloki Fakultet Universiteta u Beogradu, 1994
(ISBN 86-7087-001-1). 222 pages, graphs and maps, 16
extra plates of colour photographs, laminated cover.
This volume corresponds to the authors PhD thesis,
completed in 1992, and is devoted to the study of the
synanthropic flora and vegetation of greater Belgrade,
including the Danube riversides and some suburban rural
communities. The number of higher plant taxa (species,
subspecies, varieties) recorded and tabulated is 671, several
being first records for the area or even for the whole of
Serbia. No locality data are detailed, but a thorough
analysis of the flora by, e.g., life forms and
phytogeographical elements is provided. A phytosociological
study revealed the presence of 17 different associations, two
of them newly described. All captions of tables, figures and
of the 40 colour photographs are bilingual, Serbian and
English.
- Ivan Bondev Rastitelnostta na Bblgarija. Karta v m 1 : 600,000 s objasnitelen tekst.
[English summary: The vegetation of Bulgaria. Map
1 : 600,000 with explanatory text.]
Universitetsko Izdatelstvo sv. "Kliment
Ohridski", Sofija, 1991. 184 pages, graphs, 4
extra plates of colour photographs, folded colour
map, hard cover.
The Atlas narodna republika Bblgarija, published in
1973, included on pp. 88-89 a vegetation map with scale
1 : 1,000,000, but no explanatory text apart from
the captions. The map, redrawn at a larger scale, much
modified as to detail, and with bilingual (Bulgarian and
English) captions, has now been reissued and provided with an
explanatory volume of its own, which is the first monographic
presentation of the countrys vegetation. The 150 mapped
vegetation units (97 of primary and 53 of secondary
vegetation) are described in detail, with reference to an
extensive bibliography.
- Kônstantinos G. Theodôropoulos O
kathorismos tôn futokoinôniologikôn monadôn tou
panepistêmoniakou dasous Taxiarhê Halkidikês.
[German summary: Bestimmung und Klassifizierung der
pflanzensoziologischen Vegetationseinheiten im
Universitätswald Taxiarchis Chalkidiki.]
Ergastêrio Dasikês Botanikês [...], Sholê
Geôtehnikôn Epistêmôn, Aristoteleio Panepistêmio
Thessalonikês [Epistêmonikê epetêrida, 32(18)],
1991. [8] + 200 pages, graphs and map, 5 folded
tables and 1 folded black-and-white vegetation map
1 : 20,000, paper.
The University of Thessaloniki owns extensive natural
woodlands in the central Khalkidiki Peninsula, on the s. and
S.W. slopes of Mt Kholomon (1165 m), surrounding the village
Taxiarkhi. These woodlands, which include some Quercus
ilex vegetation in their lowest part and extensive Q.
coccifera garrigues as degradation product of former Q.
pubescens woods, consist predominantly of Q. frainetto stands and some beech woods. The vegetation is classified
on the basis of 210 phytosociological relevés supported by
30 soil profiles, and crudely mapped. No separate floristic
inventory is presented apart from the tabular species lists
of the relevés.
- Elenê N. Eleutheriadou Ê hlôrida dasôn
psuhrobiôn platufullôn-kônoforôn kai upsêlês
exôdasikês periohês Elatias Dramas. [German
summary: "Die Flora der kaltliebenden Laub- und
Koniferenwälder und der hohen Extrawaldland von
Elatia Dramas".] Ergastêrio Dasikês
Botanikês [...], Sholê Geôtehnikôn Epistêmôn,
Aristoteleio Panepistêmio Thessalonikês [Epistêmonikê
epetêrida, 33(6)], 1992. [8] + 167 pages, graphs
and maps, paper.
The Elatia area in the Greek part of the Rodopi mountains,
close to the Bulgarian border, is covered by extensive,
unspoilt forests and is famous in particular as housing the
only Greek stands of Norway spruce. This granitic mountain
region, mostly situated above 1000 m of altitude but barely
exceeding 1800 m, presents the closest match of Central
European forest flora and vegetation one can find in Greece.
Several botanists have collected there in recent years, but
most of their finds remained unpublished to date, and a
floristic inventory such as the present one was urgently
needed. Of the 712 taxa (species and subspecies) found and
identified by the author, most are new records, and no less
than 9 relate to taxa apparently not yet known from Greece.
Her book includes a general introduction to the area, a
tabular list of Balkan endemics and subendemics found (no
less than 120), and a discussion of 6 species threatened on a
world scale according to the IUCN Red Data lists (at least
one of which, Silene pindicola, obviously corresponds
to a misidentification).
- Panagiôtês Dionusios Dêmopoulos
Hlôridikê kai futokoinôniologikê ereuna tou orous
Kullênê oikologikê proseggisê.
[English summary: Floristic and phytosociological
research of mountain Killini.] Ergastêrio
Botanikês, Tmêma Biologias, Panepistêmio Patrôn,
1993. [8] + vii + 370 pages, graphs and maps, several
unnumbered extra pages with graphs, 5 extra plates of
colour photographs, 3 coloured folded maps
1 : 50,000 in pouch, paper.
Mt Killini is neighbour to Mt Khelmos in N. Peloponnesus,
and the second highest mountain of that region after Mt
Taiyetos. The present PhD thesis is devoted to the study of
both its flora (961 species or subspecies of vascular plants)
and vegetation (classified and mapped on the basis of 221
relevés treated statistically by correspondence analysis).
This is a carefully written and well documented account,
including several new data and original results. On the
floristic side, 295 taxa (more than 30 %) are new
records for the mountain, and 6 are reported from
Peloponnesus for the first time. The phytosociological
analysis has led to the description of 11 new syntaxa
(associations or subassociations), and to novel suggestions
concerning the proper classification of some pre-existing
ones. Illustrations include distribution maps for some
phytogeographically interesting elements; 15 colour
photographs of landscapes, plants or plant communities, on
special glossy paper; and maps of the topography, geology,
and vegetation of the area studied.
- Armin Jagel Zur Flora und Vegetation der
Insel Elafonisos (Lakonien, Griechenland).
[Privately published at] Spezielle Botanik,
Fakultät für Biologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum,
1992. 160 (single-sided) sheets, black-and-white
illustrations and colour photographs, 3 folded tables
in pouch, paper.
This diploma thesis (a provisional "publication"
with a somewhat uncertain bibliographical status) ultimately
results from the authors participation in a student
excursion to the Peloponnesus (see item N° 80), when he took
responsibility for the account of a one-day trip to
Elafonisos, a smallish island just off the mainland coast
near the S. tip of the Malea Peninsula. The island had been
explored by Greek botanist Yannitsaros, and a florula had
been published in 1971. Its known vascular flora has now more
than doubled thanks to Jagels work, and with well over
600 wild or alien species it must be considered as
surprisingly rich when compared to the small surface area (17
km2). What is most surprising is that among
Jagels finds were taxa completely new to Greece, such
as the mainly S. Mediterranean Marsilea aegyptiaca as
well as Coronilla repanda, mentioned on an Errata
sheet (I had collected it several years ago in the
Peloponnesus, but never cared to publish it). One of
Jagels specimens, misidentified by him as Saponaria
calabrica, has even turned out to be a new, apparently
endemic species, recently described as S. jagelii in
his honour. There are doubtless some other inaccuracies and
misnamings in the extant text, such as "Silene
ungeri" (which had been confirmed by a specialist,
though), so that republication of the florula in a revised,
condensed and more easily accessible form would appear
desirable. The careful phytogeographical analysis and the
well written vegetation description would also deserve to be
made more generally known.
- Niels B. Böhling Studien zur
Landschaftsökologischen Raumgliederung auf der
mediterranen Insel Naxos (Griechenland) unter
besonderer Berücksichtigung von Zeigerpflanzen. [Dissertationes
botanicae, 230.] Cramer, Berlin &
Stuttgart, 1994 (ISBN 3-443-64142-3). [6] + vii + 247
pages, black-and-white illustrations, 8 folded
annexes (tables and maps) in pouch, paper.
Böhlings PhD thesis goes beyond the well known
scheme of a combined floristic and phytosociological study of
a given area. True, these aspects are constituent parts of
his general concept, as shown by the presence of a floristic
inventory (unfortunately a mere list of names, not a florula
proper) enumerating 931 vascular plant taxa plus a small
number of mosses and lichens, and of vegetation descriptions
supported by some phytosociological tables. The main concern,
however (and the pioneer aspect of the whole study), is the
understanding of the actual vegetation as resulting from
interaction between biotic and abiotic environmental factors,
and the assessment of its natural regeneration potential, by
means of indicator values characterizing its individual
constituent species. Specialists will have to judge on the
value of this approach, which is novel at such a scale for a
Mediterranean territory. Side-products of Böhlings
research, such as the record of a species as new for the
flora of Europe, and of several Greek or at least Cycladean
novelties, are far from being irrelevant from a botanical
point of view.
- Bernhard Egli Ökologie der Dolinen im
Gebirge Kretas (Griechenland). PhD Thesis,
Universität Zürich [privately published by the
author, Etzelstr. 15, CH-8200 Schaffhausen], 1993.
276 pages, black-and-white illustrations, paper.
The limestone mountains of Crete are riddled with karstic
depressions of all sizes. Those of the small to medium size
categories, known as dolines, are found by the thousand. Egli
in his thesis presents a thorough study of a selection of
them (170), spread over all mountain massifs of the island at
altitudes between 750 and 2400 m a.s.l. He has inventoried
their flora (644 species, with distribution given in tabular
form, and sometimes mapped), classified their vegetation (one
new association being described), and paid special attention
to the microclimatic and pedological factors that
characterize their specialized habitat. While temperature
inversions do not play a major role on windy mountain
heights, prolonged snow cover and spring flooding does.
Water-logging depends on the nature of the soils, which in
turn conditions the vegetation type. This is the first
large-scale comparative investigation of the plant life of
Mediterranean doline systems. As a by-product, it has led to
the discovery of three species new to the islands
flora.
- Dêmêtrios Tzanoudakês Hlôridikes kai
futogeôgraphikes meletes sta nêsia tou anatolikou
aigaiou. [Floristic and phytogeographical studies
on the islands of the East Aegean.]
Ereunêtiko programma G.G.E.T., Patra, 1992. [3] +
120 pages, maps, ring brochure.
The title of this research report is misleading: it
corresponds to the name of the corresponding research
programme, but does not adequately reflect the contents. The
(obviously fairly preliminary) report mainly consists of
lists of plants collected during the funding period
(1989-1991), and sometimes before (in 1987), on a number of
small Aegean islands and islets. The largest space is taken
by species lists of Cretan offshore islets, in the S. Aegean:
Pondikonisi, Ayi Theodori, Paximadia, Koufonisi, and Elasa;
next in importance follow some E. Aegean islets: a group of
seven lying between Lipsos and Leros, Agathonisi S. of Samos,
and the Inouses group E. of Khios; in the Central Aegean,
Iraklia and two adjacent islands, south of Naxos, have been
investigated. As an appendix, a patchy list of plants
collected on Limnos (N. Aegean) is given. For several of the
smaller islets no published floristic records previously
existed, and at least one (Pondikonisi) had never before been
visited by a botanist; one of the species collected there has
since been described as a new, endemic species, Allium
platakisii.
- Ja. P. Diduh Rastitelnyj pokrov gornogo
Kryma. [The vegetation cover of mountainous
Crimea.] Naukova Dumka, Kiev, 1992 (ISBN
5-12-003225-1). 254 pages, graphs and maps, 16 extra
plates of colour photographs, hard cover. Price:
US$10 (order from Institute of Botany, Ukr. Academy
of Sciences, Tereenko 2, 252601 Kiev).
Gornogo Kryma means the southern, mountainous half of the
Crimean Peninsula. The book is an introduction to and
overview of its plant geography and vegetation, with emphasis
on the differentiation of phytogeographical districts and
vegetation units, on floristic affinities among vegetation
elements, on evolution and dynamics of the plant cover. The
list of cited references (almost 900) is particularly
impressive. Unfortunately there is no index, nor any summary
in another language, and plants are usually referred to by
their Russian names only.
- J. Léonard Contribution à létude
de la flore et de la végétation des déserts
dIran. Fascicule 10 (et dernier). Etude de
la végétation. Analyse phytosociologique et
phytochorologique des groupements végétaux. 1ère partie; 2nde partie. Jardin
botanique national de Belgique, Meise, 1991, 1992.
Pages 1-284, [3] + 285-456, maps, black-and-white
photographs, 26 partly folded, loose extra sheets
with tables, paper.
With this double fascicle, the impressive series of
publications resulting from the authors 1972 expedition
to the remote desert areas of Persia, repeatedly discussed in
this column (last in OPTIMA Newsl. 25-29: (41-42). 1991),
comes to its conclusion. The first part of fasc. 10 is, in
its core, devoted to the physiognomic description of the
vegetation observed all along the expedition, written in the
style of a travel diary. In the second half the approach is
more analytical, with characterization of vegetation units
that in many cases are described and formally named as
sigmatistic associations. Spectra of chorotypes (as defined
in fasc. 8) and growth forms (given at the end, in the index
of scientific names) are given for the individual plant
communities. An extensive English summary is also provided.
Index
Ethnobotany,
useful plants
- Matilde Chica-Pulido & Carlos
Fernández-López Nombres Castellanos de
plantas vasculares en el Colmeiro (1885-1889).
Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Jaén, 1993
(ISBN 84-600-8483-3). [3] + 109 pages, paper. Price:
Ptas 400.
The whole booklet consists of a huge list of Spanish
vernacular names (c. 12,200 entries!) with their
corresponding scientific names, plus a single page of
trilingual (Spanish, French and English) introductory text.
This is in effect an index to vernaculars cited in
Colmeiros 5-volume Enumeración y revisión de las
plantas de la Peninsula Hispano-Lusitana, for the
purposes of which, however, Colmeiros nomenclature has
been updated to conform to the modern standards of Flora
iberica, Med-Checklist, or Flora europaea.
- Mª Antonia Fernández Negri & José Antonio
Pérez Romero Plantas purgantes y astringentes
Americanas utilizadas en España. Facultad
de Ciencias Experimentales, Jaén, 1992 (ISBN
84-600-8066-8). [1] + 53 pages, paper. Price: Ptas
400.
The authors have consulted the pharmacopoeas and medical
handbooks of four centuries to retrace the history of usage
of American drugs with purging or astringent properties. They
discuss these drugs, known pharmaceutically under their
vernacular designations (cáscara sagrada, jalapa,
mechoacán, as purges; campeche, guarana, hamamelis, matico,
ratania, and simaruba, among the astringents), and their
botanical identity, which is sometimes controversial. The
bibliography they give is an interesting guide to the old
medico-pharmaceutical literature of Spain.
- Diego Rivera Núñez & Concepción Obón de
Castro Las plantas, las esencias y los
perfumes. Introducción al conocimiento de sus
tradiciones, cultivo y aprovechamiento en Murcia.
Concejalía de Sanidad y Medio Ambiente,
Ayuntamiento de Murcia, 1995 (ISBN 84-920720-0-8).
[1] + 104 pages, black-and-white and colour
illustrations, paper.
A real micro-manual of perfumes, this booklet covers an
astounding number of aspects of the vast field of
fragrance-related topics. Extraction techniques of essential
oils, fragrance families and perfume mixing, medicinal
properties and aromatherapy, industrial and economic
importance, are among the many aspects treated in a simple
but scientifically sound way. And then, of course, the plants
themselves are discussed, both those growing in the wild or
in cultivation, in the Murcia province, and those imported
from remote countries for use in the local perfume factories.
The generous illustration, mostly by colour photographs, adds
to the attractiveness of this unpretentious but commendable
brochure.
- Münir Öztürk & Hasan Özçelik Dogu
anadolunun faydali bitkileri. Useful plants of
East Anatolia. Siirt, Ilim, Spor Kültür
ve Arastirma Vakfi (SISKAV), Ankara, 1991. xvi + 196
pages, map, drawings, colour photographs, laminated
cover. Price: TL 30,000.
E. Anatolia is a country with a very diverse flora,
largely of a steppic Irano-Turanian type, with an old culture
and a popular tradition of long standing. A great number of
its plant species are in popular use, be it for food or
medicine, spice or flavour, dye or fibre, timber or fire
wood; many have potential as ornamentals, or for a variety of
other uses, but few are really known as to their qualities or
promise. It was therefore a good idea to make them the
subject of a book, to inform on their looks, whereabouts and
properties; and it was most considerate by the authors to
publish their work with a fully bilingual, Turkish and
English text. Unfortunately, the result is appalling, mainly
due to the bad quality of the illustrations. 226 figures,
mostly colour photographs plus a few crude drawings, are
supposed to permit "an easy recognition of the
plants". They do not. Many are so out of focus and/or
over- or underexposed that it is hard to be sure they show
any plant at all; in others the scale or angle of view is
inappropriate for recognition, and few are such that one can
with any degree of confidence confirm or challenge the
identification proposed. If there was to be a prize for the
worst illustrated book of the decade, this would be a strong
candidate. A real pity. Perhaps a new effort might achieve a
better result? If so, another desideratum for a book of this
scope would be an index to uses, not to plants only.
Index
Conservation
topics, red data books
- Maurici Mus i Amezquita Plans de
conservació dels vegetals amenaçats de Balears. I.
Mallorca. Govern Balear, Conselleria
dAgricultura i Pesca [Documents tècnics de
conservació, 15], 1993. [18] + 152 + [8] pages,
21 partly folded extra maps, ring brochure.
A technical document full of partly second-hand but more
often original data on the potentially threatened plants of
Mallorca, each of which is presented in detail. An urgency
scale has been established regarding their conservation need,
based on the sum that results from adding together 15
weighted criteria, on which Thymus herba-barona subsp. proevaleum is ranked on top, closely followed by Naufraga
balearica. As a conclusion, a concrete proposal for the
establishment of 20 "special zones of conservation for
plants" (ZECOP) is made, and the areas to be thus
protected are mapped in outline, mostly at a scale of 1 :
25,000.
- J. Marrou & A. Charrier (ed.)
Conservation et gestion des ressources génétiques
végétales en France. Bureau des
Ressource Génétiques & Comité Technique
Permanent de la Sélection des Plantes Cultivées,
[Paris], 1992. 243 pages, figures and maps, paper.
This account deals with plant genetic resources in terms
of crops, forestry and rangeland plants, and, marginally,
their wild relatives. It describes the existent and planned
conservation networks in France for the various groups of
useful plants, and their role and possible interactions in an
international (European) context. The holdings of the various
conservation agencies are described in general terms only,
but this will usually suffice to direct those interested to
useful sources of material or information.
- Fabio Conti, Aurelio Manzi & Franco Pedrotti
Libro rosso delle piante dItalia.
Associazione Italiana per il WWF, v. Salaria 290,
I-00199 Roma, 1993. 637 pages, drawings, paper.
The threatened vascular plants of Italy are treated in
full, each on one page, with a drawing of its general habit
(by Lucilla Carcano), distributional, ecological, biological,
conservational and bibliographic data (but no description).
458 taxa (species and some subspecies) are so treated, most
of which are considered rare or vulnerable, and many
endangered, but only 15 presumed extinct. None of the latter
is endemic to Italy, and indeed at least one (Chrysosplenium
oppositifolium) has never been found there, having been
reported in error, and another one (Lythrum thesioides) was
likely an alien. A majority of the extinct species were
either confined to sea shores or small islands (4) or to
wetland habitats (3). Lists of threatened bryophytes (496)
and lichens (276) are appended. The book is the result of
competent and enthusiastic teamwork well orchestrated by
Franco Pedrotti under the aegis of the Società Botanica
Italiana.
- Giovanni Nieddu, Carmine Scuddu, Giovanna Filia,
Maria Assunta Nieddu & Mario Brundu (ed.)
Le piante nostre amiche. Scuola
elementare, Villagrande, 1989. 207 pages,
black-and-white illustrations and colour photographs,
laminated cover.
Never heard of Villagrande Strisáili? Few have: it is a
smallish village in the mountains of E. Sardinia, province of
Nuoro, and obviously has excellent and idealistic
schoolmasters and a remarkable lord mayor. The former, who
sign as editors of this book, have designed and carried out a
co-operative research project on plants in general, and on
the local flora in particular, during the 1987-1988 school
term, by four classes of the 3rd to 5th grade. These ten- to
twelve-year-old kids have performed so remarkably well that
their collective work was found worth being published. With
the mayor as fund-raiser and driving force, this has resulted
in an astounding booklet, with individual or collective texts
and essays on a variety of botanical and plant-related
subjects (e.g. forest fires, natural parks, threatened
plants, ethnobotany and medicinal plants, plants in poetry
and literature), and at its core a collection of plant
descriptions illustrated by 84 black-and-white and 64 colour
photographs. The enthusiasm of the kids transpires on every
page, and the whole project is one of the most positive
examples of education to environmental awareness that has
come to my attention so far.
- Grêgorês Tsounês Periballon apo to A ôs
to Ô. [The environment from A to Z.]
Genikê Grammateia Neas Genias & Ellênikê
Etairia Prostasias tês Fusês, Nikês 24, GR-10557
Athêna, 1991. 89 pages, paper.
A popular glossary of terms relevant to the study of the
environment, with the letters of the Greek alphabet, from
alpha to omega, serving as headers.
- Eleonora C. Gabrieljan (ed.) Krasnaja kniga
Armianskoj SSR. Redkie i nahodjaciesja pod
ugrozoj isceznovenija bidy rastenij. Institut
Botaniki, Akademija Nauk Armjanskoj S.S.R.,
"1989" [1990] (ISBN 5-540-00814-6). 284
pages, maps, drawings, black-and-white and colour
photographs, hard cover.
Whereas almost one half of the Armenian vascular flora is
said to need some protection, the present book limits itself
to the 387 cases of real urgency. For each of them, the
conservation status (IUCN category and nature of the threat)
is indicated, and data on the distribution in Armenia and
elsewhere, the ecology, biology, and conservation measures
are given. In most cases, a map of the known Armenian
occurrences is provided, and often also a photograph of the
plant. Some of the listed species are recent discoveries made
during the preparatory field campaigns for this book, either
new to Armenia or new to science. An appendix describes and
illustrates threatened vegetation types. Attention is drawn
to the fact that the presently defined protected areas are
largely inadequate to safeguard the threatened Armenian
flora, and that they are moreover quite inadequately guarded,
if at all known, in actual practice. The text is in Russian,
with a trilingual (Russian, Armenian and English)
introduction.
Index
National
parks and protected areas
- Francesco Maria Raimondo & Bruno Massa (ed.)
Le perle verdi della Sicilia. Viaggio alla
scoperta delle riserve naturali. Arbor, v.
Enrico Albanese 114, Palermo, 1990. 221 pages, colour
maps and photographs, hard cover.
The cover photograph, showing the famous papyrus stands
near Syracuse, the only European locality of that species,
adequately introduces the subject. Sicily has in very recent
years (between 1981 to 1985) built up an impressive network
of nature preserves scattered all over and around the island:
19 protected areas (two of them more recently integrated in
the Madonie Nature Park), varying in size from 12 to 4400
hectares and ranging from the seashores and river estuaries
up to the mountain tops. There is considerable drive behind
these conservational schemes, as evidenced by a number of
well produced publications, aimed at a general public, in
which the plant cover invariably plays a prominent role (see
also OPTIMA Newsl. 20-24: (51-51). 1988, and the following
items). The present book is a remarkably beautiful general
overview of the 19 preserves, each exactly positioned on a
sector of the Sicilian road map, characterized on several
pages, and illustrated by numerous landscape, plant and
animal photographs. One may note in passing that the
photograph on p. 80 is not of Cyperus kalli (= C.
capitatus) as the heading suggests and as the index on p.
219 asserts, but of a maritime rush, Juncus cf. maritimus, as correctly stated in the caption printed
overleaf.
- Ignazia Pinzello (ed.) Dal Manzanares
allOreto. Due realtà a confronto per un
progetto di parco fluviale a Palermo.
Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze, Lettere e Arti,
Palermo, 1993. 181 pages, black-and-white and colour
illustrations, paper.
Dont be confused by the title: whereas the River
Oreto skirts Palermo, the Manzanares River concerns Madrid.
The relation between the two will become clear when one reads
the whole document. Both river valleys are fully exposed to
the impact of two growing cities, yet they both have the
potential, in an urbanistic concept, to serve as rural to
semi-natural reserves and "green lungs" amidst the
expanding human settlements. This is a very well orchestrated
project and plea, that sets off by a multi-disciplinary study
of the Oreto river valley, from its ancient history to its
present-day hydrography, agricultural use (manly citrus and
fruit tree plantations) and plant cover (a botanical chapter
by Raimondo, illustrated by two dozen drawings of mostly
endemic species). In conclusion, the set-up of a river-valley
park is proposed, with a large agro-naturalistic portion in
the middle and upper part of the valley and an urban park
area at the estuary, which would be a natural continuation,
and perhaps extension, of the adjacent Palermo Botanic
Garden. The central portion of the study, between description
and conclusion, is in Spanish and depicts the analogous
situation around Madrid, with a description of the Manzanares
Valley and the project of its conservation in an urbanistic
context. One has to see this book to appreciate the
naturalistic and conservational drive that is behind it, and
the skill and persuasiveness with which it seeks to sway and
direct the political opinion. One may be curious of the
success.
- Rino Canzoneri (ed.) Il Parco delle
Madonie. Un crocevia dove convivono le piante di
tre continenti. Arbor, v. Enrico Albanese 114,
Palermo, 1989. 229 pages, map, colour photographs,
hard cover and dust-cover. Price: Lit 130,000.
- Rino Canzoneri Il Parco Naturale delle
Madonie. Madonie Natural Park. Der
Madonie-Naturpark. Le parc naturel des Madonie.
Immagini. Images. Bilder. Images. Arbor, v.
Enrico Albanese 114, Palermo, 1989. [4] pages, 20
full-size colour photographs on loose sheets with
text on verso, folio format, in folder.
- Maria Laura Crescimanno Il Parco delle
Madonie. Natura e paesi. [Parchi naturali di
Sicilia.] Arbor, v. Enrico Albanese 114,
Palermo, 1994. 157 pages, black-on-green
illustrations, colour photographs, laminated cover.
Price: Lit 20,000.
These three publications of different appearance and
scope, but by the same publisher and having some of their
pictures in common, are illustrative of how well the
Sicilians "sell" their new conservation policy to
the general public. The Madonie natural park, established in
November 1989 to include and enlarge two former nature
preserves, extends over an area of c. 40,000 hectares and
covers about 30 % of the territory of the 15
municipalities involved. The first book is a gorgeous,
luxuriously printed picture book with informative popular
texts (mostly by Raimondo) on the vegetation, flora, fauna,
cultural tradition and folklore of the area, and splendid
photographs of landscapes, plants and animals (mostly by
Barbagallo); as an appendix, 27 excursion routes or variants
are briefly described that permit to explore the park on
foot, ski or horseback. The second item is a collection of
large-scale (c. 30 cm ´ 45 cm) pictures of the same or
similar subjects, suited for being framed, with fully
quadrilingual (Italian, English, German, French) introductory
and accompanying text. The third has pocket-book format, and
while it also conveys valuable naturalistic information it is
more directly aimed at the local or foreign tourist (e.g. by
giving the Latin equivalent of plant and animal names, which
are lacking in the first item), especially those visiting the
area by car: the itineraries it gives (4) concentrate on the
villages and their sightseeing, cultural and gastronomic
assets.
- Franco Russo Il Parco dellEtna. [Parchi
naturali di Sicilia.] Arbor, v. Enrico
Albanese 114, Palermo, 1992. 135 pages, colour
illustrations, laminated cover. Price: Lit 20,000.
With a core area of 45,000 hectares, and a protected
periphery of another 14,000, the Mt Etna Park is the largest
among Italys regional parks. It was instituted formally
in 1987 and has Europes highest active volcano (over
3300 m) as its centre. This guide booklet has the same format
and general appearance as the foregoing item (N° 140), but
gives fuller administrative and technical details, and
naturally devotes quite some space to features of active and
past volcanism along with the fauna, flora and landscape.
Excursions along the marked footpaths are described, which
include a newly equipped nature trail. (See also item N° 56,
above.)
Index
Gardens
- Carlos Rodríguez Dacal & Jesús Izco
Pazos de Galicia. Jardines y plantas.
Xunta de Galicia, [Santiago de Compostela], 1994
(ISBN 84-453-1229-4). 373 pages, colour
illustrations, hard cover and dust-cover.
Pazo is a Galician word that can be translated as mansion,
or manor. Such non-fortified feudal residences have a great
tradition in Galicia, and are often associated with beautiful
old parks and gardens. Ten of them are presented here, of
varying sizes (4 to 60 hectares), each with a plan of the
premises and a list of plant holdings (woody species only).
The book is splendidly illustrated with colour photographs of
the gardens, trees, fountains, romantic corners, and of the
manor houses themselves, often also with reproductions of old
plans or plant lists. It is a pleasure for the eye and an
important document of historical gardens and gardening.
- Guadalupe Fernández & Juan Antonio Devesa
Guía de los árboles y arbustos de los
parques y jardines de Badajoz. Concejalía
de Cultura, Ayuntamiento de Badajoz, 1990 (ISBN
84-87762-00-x). 203 pages, 5 folded maps, colour
photographs, laminated cover.
Eleven parks and squares of the city of Badajoz are
briefly presented, the more important ones with a map. The
main portion of the book is devoted to the description of
their 172 tree and shrub species, many of them with a
photograph and each with indication of the flowering period,
provenance, main properties, and examples of their location
in Badajoz. An interesting feature of this handy park-guide
is a dichotomous identification key for all treated species.
- Ana Ma Negrillo Galindo,
José Manuel García Montes & Carlos Fernández
López Arboles y arbustos de los jardines da
la ciudad de Granada. Universidad de
Granada & Ayuntamiento de Granada, 1990 (ISBN
84-338-1285-8). 319 pages, drawings, two-coloured
maps, colour photographs, laminated cover.
In the core portion of this guide, 135 woody species,
treated alphabetically under their Spanish name, are
described, each being illustrated by drawings showing
analytical details and often general plant shape. At the end
one may find the plans of 12 gardens and squares of the City
of Granada, with tree locations mapped, preceded by a list of
the species (this time alphabetized by their Latin names)
with their locations in tabular form. A practical and
carefully written book, in which the pervasion of Latin plant
names by Spanish spelling habits ("Wergelia" [for Weigela], "Eucaliptus",
"rithydophyllum"...) is an awkward but minor
default.
- Francesco Maria Raimondo (ed.) Orti
botanici, giardini alpini, arboreti italiani.
Grifo, v. Dante 79, Palermo, 1992. 510 pages,
black-and-white and colour illustrations, hard cover.
Price: Lit 170,000.
When one looks at this splendid survey of the 28
university and 29 non-university gardens of Italy (including
alpine gardens, arboreta, and other specialized collections
of living plants), one may get a feeling of awe and, perhaps,
envy. Is Italy, the cradle of botanical gardening, also its
present stronghold? Probably not. Here and there in this
beautiful eulogy the sad reality transpires, a reality
familiar world-wide to members of the botanic garden
community: structural difficulties, lack of funds and
facilities, of public support, of professional expertise.
This book, by presenting a much embellished picture, is in
fact a strong plea to all concerned for helping improve the
situation. Its authors espoused the sound philosophy that
support is usually bestowed upon the winner and rarely upon
the really needful so better pretend. This approach
does also benefit the uncommitted reader, of course, who will
find plentiful information on Italian gardens at their best,
on their present holdings and activities, and above all on
their glorious past. The book is generously illustrated by
modern photographs and historical documents alike. One
special feature are 21 full-page black-and-white
reproductions of early botanical paintings kept at the Pisa
University library, apparently just used to fill otherwise
blank pages but not indexed nor referred to in the text: on
these, I shall dwell at some length in the review of the
following item, to which they are relevant.
- Fabio Garbari, Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi &
Alessandro Tosi Giardino dei Semplici. LOrto
botanico di Pisa dal XVI al XX secolo. Pacini,
Ospedaletto (PI), 1991 (ISBN 88-7781-058-0). 397
pages, black-and-white and colour illustrations, hard
cover and dust-cover.
Those who seek information on how the Pisa Botanic Garden
presently looks will be disappointed: this is an historical
account, and the modern garden is dealt with on ten pages
plus one photograph. Those, however, who are interested in
the early European developments of our science will be fully
satisfied. The joint efforts of one botanist and two art
historians have brought to light a plenty of data and
documents, mostly unpublished or scattered through the
non-botanical literature, all of relevance to the
historically minded. Remember that Pisas botanical
garden was the first academic garden to have been created, in
1544 (and one year ahead of Padua and Florence); that its
founder, Luca Ghini, and his successor and pupil, Andrea
Cesalpino, were among the leaders of Renaissance botany; that
later directors of the garden include famous botanists such
as Santi, Savi, Caruel, Arcangeli, and Chiarugi, all of whom
have greatly contributed to our science and to the riches of
the Pisa herbarium. The present garden was in fact the third,
of which this volume commemorates the fourth centenary since
it was established in 1591 under Giuseppe Casabona. Among the
many fascinating documents (plant and animal paintings,
botanists portraits, plans, handwritings, etc.) of
which the colour reproductions embellish the book, two sets
of early plant illustrations, both kept in the manuscript
section of the Pisa University library, are worth special
mention. The first is from a volume of 35 plates (ms. N°
462) painted by German artist Georg Dyckman in Crete under
Casabonas supervision, in 1590, one of the earliest
first-hand sources on the flora of that island; the second is
due to Filippo Paladini in 1603 and represents plants grown
in the Pisa Garden bound in a volume of 32 water-colours (ms.
N° 465). Some of these paintings, and a few others from the
same two sources, were reproduced in black-and-white in the
previously mentioned book (item N° 145), and/or in an
earlier paper by Tongiorgi Tomasi (in Kos 1: 62-78. 1984).
Since botanical explicitness, or accuracy, are among the
weaker points of these accounts, I could not resist the
temptation to offer new identifications, listed hereunder
alphabetically, with reference to the texts inscribed (by
some unknown botanist) on the paintings themselves, in
quotes; the "identification" in the captions, in
brackets; and the figure (for item N° 146) or page number
(for item N° 145 and the Kos paper).
Achillea cretica, ms. 462, "Millefolium cretense" [Achillea cretica]
(145: 50).
Anemone coronaria, ms. 462, "Anemones variae", upper left plant [specie
di anemoni]: fig. 281 (145: 78; Kos: 72).
Anemone hortensis var. heldreichii, ms. 462, "Anemones variae", lower, central and right
plants [specie di anemoni]: fig. 281 (145: 78; Kos:
72).
Anethum graveolens, ms. 465, "" [Finocchio]: fig. 26 (145: 302).
?Anthemis tinctoria, ms. 465, "Bellide spinosa Lobel. advers. 509" [Bellide
spinosa]: fig. 27.
Cichorium spinosum, ms. 462, "" [] (Kos: 77).
Clematis cirrhosa, ms. 462, "Clematis betica Clusii" [Clematide cirrosa]:
fig. 23 (145: 408).
?Cneorum tricoccum, ms. 465, "Cneorum" [Timelea tricocca]: fig. 30.
Convolvulus dorycnium, ms. 462, "Conuoluolus gamusculosus: neutique Dorychnius
monspeliensis. Conuol. spicae foliis" [Convolvolo]:
fig. 108 (145: 62; Kos: 69).
Convolvulus dorycnium, ms. 462 [copy of the
previous], "Conuoluolus roseus" []
(Kos: 78).
Corchorus olitorius, ms. 465, "Abelochia Egiptia Prosp. Alp. 39" []
(145: 326).
Crepis fraasii, ms. 462, "Hieracium
Apulum suave rubens Columnae", lower plant []
(145: 306; Kos: 76).
Crepis rubra, ms. 462, "Hieracium
Apulum suave rubens Columnae", upper left plant []
(145: 306; Kos: 76).
Cynara cardunculus, ms. 465, "Carduus lac coagulans Scolymus Theophr." [Cynara
cardunculus]: fig. 124.
Echinops cf. ritro, ms. 465, "Sferocefalos sol Dod. siue melius Carduus
siriacus" [Eringio]: fig. 123.
Euphorbia acanthothamnos, ms. 462, "" [Euforbia spinosa]: fig. 17 (Kos: 71).
Euphorbia dimorphocaulon, ms. 465, "Apios" [] (145: 262).
Fagonia cretica, ms. 462, "Trifolium
spinosum" [Fagonia cretica]: fig. 18 (145:
454; Kos: 65).
Hyoscyamus aureus, ms. 462, "Hyosciamus luteus" [] (Kos: 78).
Juniperus phoenicea, ms. 465, "Cedrus Licia Dodonei" [Ginepro feniceo]: fig.
29.
Lavatera arborea, ms. 462, "Althea
arborescens" [Altea arborea]: fig. 20 (Kos: 68).
Limonium sinuatum, ms. 462, "Cicorium globulare Imperati, Limonii species satis
elegans" [Statice sinuata]: fig. 109 (Kos: 70).
Lomelosia cretica, ms. 465, "Scabiosa arborescens" [Scabiosa arborea]: fig.
25.
Lomelosia graminifolia, ms. 465, "" [Scabiosa]: fig. 122.
Paeonia clusii, ms. 462, "Peonia
flore albo simplici" [Peonia]: fig. 107 (145: 88;
Kos: 67).
Ptilostemon chamaepeuce, ms. 462, "Chamaepeuce Plinii Anguillarae. Stoebe capitata Cret.
Ponae. Jacea fruticosa ... folio Bauhini" [Ptilostemon
chamaepeuce]: fig. 21.
Ranunculus asiaticus var. albus, ms. 462, "Anemones" [Ranuncolo asiatico]: fig. 279 (Kos:
75).
Ranunculus asiaticus var. flavus, ms. 462, "Ranunculus" [Ranuncolo asiatico]: fig. 280
(145: 164; Kos: 73).
Ranunculus asiaticus var. puniceus, ms. 462, " Ranunculus" [Ranuncolo asiatico]: fig. 19.
Ranunculus bullatus, ms. 462, "Ranunculi", upper plant only []
(Kos: 74).
Salsola aegaea, ms. 462, "Sanamunda
Clusii altera" [Timelea irsuta]: fig. 22 (Kos: 64).
Scutellaria cf. columnae, ms. 465, "" [Salvia] (145: 280).
Stachys cretica, ms. 465, "" [] (145: 428).
Styrax officinalis, ms. 462, "Prunus
sebestena" ["Prunus sebestena"]:
fig. 282 (145: 238).
Thymelaea hirsuta, ms. 462, "Sanamunda Clusii" [] (145: 112).
- Alessandro Minelli (ed.) The Botanical
Garden of Padua 1545-1995. Marsilio,
Venezia, 1995 (ISBN 88-317-6268-0). 311 pages,
black-and-white and colour illustrations, hard cover
and dust-cover.
With its 2 hectares and 3500 plant species, the Padua
Botanic Garden by itself has little claim to be a major
institution of its kind yet it is the oldest botanical
garden in terms of permanence in the same site: it was
founded in the summer of 1544, and the present volume
commemorates its 450th anniversary. This is, for excellent
reasons, an historical account, fully illustrated, i.a., with
reproductions of archival matter and rare printed texts and
images, and will be appreciated as an important source work
on the history of European botany. Written by a large number
of authors, it is clearly structured and easy to consult. One
major section concerns the gardens development through
the centuries; then there is a series of chapters
commemorating the 20 garden directors who succeeded one
another between 1546 and 1970: an impressive gallery,
including names like Anguillara, Guilandino, Cortuso,
Prospero Alpini, Vesling, Pontedera, Arduino, Marsili,
Visiani, Saccardo, and Béguinot. Of major interest for the
history of plant introduction is a section on the 16th
century holdings of the garden, based on lists and documents
from the times of Anguillara, Guilandino, and Cortuso.
Finally, there are excellent and informative texts on the
history of the collections held in PAD, which include an
important general and regional phanerogam herbarium, several
old herbals and separate collections, Saccardos
invaluable mycological collection, one of the worlds
largest gall herbaria, by Trotter (utterly unused today), and
an impressive botanical library.
- Francesco Maria Raimondo, Pietro Mazzola &
Andrea Di Martino LOrto botanico di
Palermo. The Palermo Botanical Garden.
Arbor, v. Enrico Albanese 114, Palermo, 1993. 261
pages, colour map and photographs, hard cover and
dust-cover. Price: Lit 130,000.
In 1995, the Palermo Botanical Garden celebrates the
bicentenary of its formal inauguration, on 9 Dec 1795 (having
been under construction since 1789, and preceded by a
different garden since 1781). This volume, published in good
time for the celebration, is not however an historical
account: it is the lively and colourful illustration of the
garden in its present beauty, of its holdings and some of its
public activities. That gifted nature photographer, Franco
Barbagallo, has contributed the 235 gorgeous colour
photographs that form the core of the book, which is
completely bilingual (Italian and English).
- Salvatore Mario Inzerillo & Pietro Mazzola
(ed.) Il Parco del Gattopardo in Santa
Margherita Belice. Azienda Foreste
Demaniali, Regione Siciliana, Palermo, 1995. 77
pages, black-and-white and colour illustrations,
paper.
The mansion or palace in which the author of the famous
novel Il Gattopardo, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa,
spent happy years of childhood, and which provided the
background for the novels plot, was ruined in 1968 by
an earthquake. The beautiful park that depends from it was
abandoned, mutilated, spoilt. Since the Region of Sicily
became legally empowered to initiate the restoration of
municipal parks and palaces, the project was formed to make
an inventory and plan the reconstruction of this domain,
which had once hosted the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV on his
exile from Naples, in 1812-1813. Architects and botanists of
the Palermo University associated their efforts to produce
the present, well documented and illustrated report and
project, drawing on many sources such as Tomasis own
account of the premises in his "Tales" (I
racconti). The result is an interesting document, both
for the historian and landscape architect, and a telling
example of a botanical contribution to urban planning and
development.
- Yusuf Gemici, Özcan Seçmen, Ilker Acar, Güven
Görk & Nihal Özel Kültürparkin
(Izmir) agaç ve çali türleri. Species of the
trees and shrubs of the Culturepark (Izmir).
IZFAS, Sair esref Bulvari 50, TR-35230 Izmir, 1992.
[10] + 64 + [4] pages, colour photographs, laminated
cover.
Culturepark, instituted in 1936, is Istanbuls
exhibition ground on which, among other things, the
citys International Fair is held every year: a
42-hectare area planted with 6000 trees belonging to c. 200
different taxa. This has now been declared an arboretum, and
the present guide to 197 of its woody species, each
illustrated by a photograph, intends to increase its
attractivity and enhance its new role. All texts and captions
are bilingual, Turkish and (simili-)English.
Index
Herbaria
- Emilia Díaz-Vargas, José Manuel Espinosa-Gento,
Carlos Fernández-López, Juan Luis Hervas-Serrano
& Margarita López-Pulido Plantas
vasculares de Andalucía Oriental en los ficheros de
siete herbarios. Facultad de Ciencias
Experimentales, Jaén, 1991 (ISBN 84-600-7699-7). 51
pages, paper. Price: Ptas 300.
An alphabetical list of taxon names, with indication of
the E. Andalusian provinces (Almería, Granada, Jaén,
Málaga) in which each taxon occurs and of the herbaria,
among those considered (COFG, GDA, GDAC, JAEN, MAF, MGC,
SEV), in which material is held. The list is apparently
compiled from herbarium files, without synonymy. The
introduction is laconic and leaves many questions unanswered.
Why were these herbaria selected? How were the province
occurrences established? Do herbaria, if listed, just hold
specimens of the taxon in general, or E. Andalusian
specimens? How are the herbarium files structured, and how
complete is coverage? (Note that virtually no COFG records
are included.) And above all: what is the scope of this list,
to whom is it useful, and why? The latter question may be
difficult to answer, I fear.
- M. Tretiach & M. Valcuvia Passadore (ed.)
Censimento degli erbari lichenologici
italiani. Società Lichenologica Italiana [Notiziario, 3, suppl. 1.], Trieste, 1990.
114 pages, map, paper.
An overview of the lichen holdings of 23 public herbaria
in Italy yields a total of c. 200,000 specimens. Some details
on these collections are provided, including names of the
lichenologists to whom the main ones are due (but no mention
is made of, e.g., curatorial situation, accessibility, or
loan policy). The survey omits one important public herbarium
(Pisa, with the Trevisan material) and the probably numerous
private collections. Even so, it presents a useful, welcome
synthesis.
- Guido Moggi (ed.) Guida agli erbari della
Toscana. Dipartimento Istruzione e
Cultura, Giunta regionale toscana, [Firenze],
1994.131 pages, colour photographs, paper.
This is the most detailed and careful regional inventory
of herbarium holdings, private or public, I have yet come
across. It includes information on all sorts of plant
collections, from the Florence University Herbarium with its
4 million specimens of all kinds and ages, to which 16 pages
are devoted, to the two dozen demonstration sheets kept in
the classrooms of some school or college; from the 17th
century herbarium bound in form of a volume that ended up in
some municipal library or monastic community to the assembled
tables of local forest trees exhibited on the panels of a
nature museum. By its sheer existence, this booklet will
confer value to these varied collections, focus public
interest on them, and may save some of them from neglect,
damage or destruction. It also endeavours to promote new
collecting activities by a chapter on collecting and
herbarium techniques. Several colour photographs illustrate
some of the more valuable, or curious, examples of this
special element of our cultural heritage.
- Chiara Nepi & Piero Cuccuini Collectors
and collections in the "Herbarium Centrale
Italicum" (phanerogamic section). An
annotated list of plant collectors and collections
present in the Herbarium Centrale Italicum of the
Museo Botanico prepared on the occasion of the
"150-HCI" international meeting organized
for the 150th anniversary of the Central Italian
Herbarium (1842-1992). Museo Botanico
dellUniversità, Firenze, 1992. [4] + 110
pages, handwriting samples, paper.
Dont let yourself be fooled by the name: the Central
Italian Herbarium in Florence is a world-wide general
herbarium, comprising virtually every collection kept at FI
except the Webb Herbarium, the Malaysian plants of Beccari,
and a few old, mostly bound "historical" herbaria.
The authors therefore present us with an inventory of most of
the FI holdings, of which they enumerate and briefly
characterize the main constituent vascular plant collections.
An alphabetical list of plant collectors (with collecting
dates and countries) and of countries of provenance (with
collectors) follows. Although lower cryptogams are not
specifically excluded, they do not appear to have been
covered. At the end a set of 20 samples of hand-written
labels is reproduced. (See also items N° 167-168.)
- Asuman Baytop Istanbul Üniversitesi
Eczacilik Fakültesi herbariumundaki Türkiye
bitkileri. III. Birinci Ek. Turkish material
present in the Herbarium of the Faculty of Farmacy of
Istanbul University. III. First supplement.
Farmasötik Botanik Bilim Dali, Istanbul, 1991. [5] +
22 pages, stapled loose sheets.
The first two parts of this herbarium catalogue were
published as printed books in 1984 and 1988, respectively
(see OPTIMA Newsl. 17-19: 59. 1985; 25-29: (67). 1991). This
first supplement is more modest in its looks. It includes
supplementary taxa or records, based on recent accessions or
identifications. Some taxa are here recorded for the first
time for Turkey, in which case specimen details are provided.
An updated bibliographical list of herbarium staff
publications is appended.
Index
Bibliography
and documentation
- Rafaël Govaerts World Checklist of seed
plants, volume 1, part 1, the species; part 2,
the synonyms. MIM, Antwerp, 1995 (ISBN
90-341-0853-8). [3] + 483, [3] + 529 pages, cloth.
Price: SFr 260.
When a young, unknown man sets out to do the impossible,
he will at best meet with benevolent scepticism. Both
benevolence and scepticism are here justified. A world
checklist of spermatophytes is a giant undertaking,
especially if the result is to be usable. One will, if at
all, plan it by combining extant information in Floras and
revisions, i.e., using a geographical and taxonomic
breakdown. Govaerts starts from the Index kewensis, and
his breakdown units are the letters of the alphabet. Neither
makes sense: IK is notoriously inaccurate and
incomplete, and the alphabet will not allow full congruence
and back-checking between accepted names and synonyms. This
first twin volume treats those names and synonyms that begin
with the letter A, and unavoidably, as the author
states in his introduction, is but "a rough checklist,
... a first step in making a very much better one". Many
of its shortcomings are due to its questionable approach: the
synonyms listed are not those that one may find in use, but
those included in IK under accepted generic names
beginning with A; which, for the patchily treated
infraspecific ranks (occasionally down to forma), means that
usually only names published or recombined after 1970, and
therefore present in the IK database, are accounted
for! In order to keep synonym number at a reasonable level
(about as many synonyms as accepted names are listed), those
combined under synonymous generic names have been altogether
omitted, regardless of their possible widespread use. Of the
41 names and combinations newly validated, all begin with A, and all but two have a basionym or replaced synonym
beginning with A. Statistically, and assuming that
9 % of all names begin with A (a figure based on
generic names in current use for all plants), one may expect
that a further 45 new specific names and combinations will be
needed for the purposes of the present volumes, in addition
to the 5 actually proposed. In other words, a substantial
backlog of unaccounted-for taxa exists that will surface if
and when the work progresses. There are unfortunately other
shortcomings to be mentioned, that are not due to the method
employed but to sloppy work. Names not validly published,
including misapplications of names by later authors, have not
been weeded out consistently, which may often lead to
erroneous assumptions. Spelling mistakes abound. Even among
the new validations, where one might have expected
above-average accuracy, do wrong spellings and grammatically
wrong endings appear. Furthermore, of just a few cases
checked, one turned out to be inappropriate nomenclaturally (Aethionema
grandiflorum subsp. coridifolium, based on a
legitimate Candollean species name that is by 28 years senior
to Boissier & Hohenackers A. grandiflorum, and
where the epithet is moreover consistently misspelled as cordifolium), and a second one is not new (Arabis cebennensis subsp. pedemontana, a combination validated by Fournier already
in 1936). An inexplicable omission is the generic name Astracantha, adopted in e.g. Med-Checklist but, while
implicitly treated as a synonym of Astragalus here,
not listed as such. All this having been said, and going back
to where we started from, we may conclude that, yes, the list
as it stands is usable, and should indeed be used whenever
appropriate, but it is not really useful in the sense that it
is incomplete, and that everything it contains needs critical
verification before it can be taken for granted. Hopefully,
at least some of its shortcomings may be avoided in the
volumes yet to come.
- Heinz Kalheber Index ad iconographiam
florae europaeae. Heft. 1: Pteridophyta,
Gymnospermae, Dicotyledones (Acanthaceae-Cneoraceae) [Courier
Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, 165.]
Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft,
Frankfurt a.M., 1993 (ISBN 3-929907-04-6). 164 + 14
pages, paper bound with loose insert.
As a geographical complement to the Index
iconographique des plantes vasculaires dAfrique of
Bamps & al., Kalhebers new index for Europe
promises to be an extremely valuable tool for plant
taxonomists. This first of, presumably, six volumes coincides
with vol. 1 of Med-Checklist in taxonomic coverage, and as
random checks have demonstrated it is quite practical and
reasonably complete. For an amateur botanist working on it
during his spare time, and outside the major botanical
centres, it is a most remarkable achievement. One of its
special features, distinguishing it from and placing it ahead
of other similar indexes, is the fact that not only have
synonymies been established, so that one and the same taxon
appears in a single place, but an effort has been made to
ascertain the correct identity of the plants figured! Perhaps
due to exaggerated modesty, Kalheber fails to indicate
precisely the criteria he used for including or excluding a
reference. In an attempt to assess exact coverage through
some sampling, I come to the following (provisional)
conclusions: Europe has been geographically defined as in Flora
europaea. All European wild taxa (but not usually those
of lower rank than subspecies) are taken into consideration,
but European origin of the figured plants is not required.
Complete coverage is aimed at for line drawings, engravings
and paintings published since 1880 (date stated in the
introduction), with drawings of morphological details being
routinely included; but photographs are cited only
occasionally, and only in the case of herbarium specimens,
not of live plants or anatomical details; illustrations of
chromosomes, chromatographic banding patterns and other
features not directly observable on plant specimens are
discounted. Continuation of the index is to be encouraged;
once complete, it will be one of the basic works upon which
European (and other) botanists will want to rely.
- Angeles González-Martín, Carlos
Fernández-López & Pablo Nieto-Jaenes
Icones de la flora de Andalucía con referencias a
las revistas botánicas españolas.
Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Jaén, 1991
(ISBN 84-600-7659-8). 72 pages, paper. Price: Ptas
400.
A "quick and dirty" list of illustrations
relating to Andalusian vascular plant taxa. The sources
considered are limited in number: basic iconographic works
concerning the Iberian peninsula, a selection of illustrated
floras concerning the Mediterranean area, as far as Iraq (but
surprisingly not Maires Flore de lAfrique du
Nord), and the more important current Spanish botanical
journals. The extent to which old names have been
(implicitly) synonymized is erratic. Furthermore,
illustrations appearing in the scanned journals have
apparently been listed irrespective of whether or not the
taxon occurs in Andalusia. Once a user is aware of these
limitations and idiosyncrasies, she or he will consult the
index profitably. This as well as the three following items
include a French and English summary.
- Carlos Fernández-López, Teresa Armenteros,
Francisca Barrera, Ma Antonia Contreras, Manuel García-Martínez, Antonia
Guzmán-Villar & Manuela Martos-Villar
Plantas vasculares en revistas botanicas andaluzas.
Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Jaén, 1991
(ISBN 84-600-7640-7). 75 pages, paper. Price: Ptas
400.
An index to scientific names appearing in four botanical
journals, and in a botanical issue of a fifth, all published
in Andalusia (Almería, Granada, Jaén, Málaga, Sevilla) in
recent years. Phytosociological tables and mere lists of
names have not been indexed. The subject coverage of some of
the journals far exceeds, of course, the limits of the
region, and even of Spain.
- Emilia Díaz-Vargas, José Manuel Espinosa-Gento,
Carlos Fernández-López, Juan Luis Hervas-Serrano
& Margarita López-Pulido Flora de
Andalucía. Catálogo bibliográfico de las plantas
vasculares. Facultad de Ciencias
Experimentales, Jaén, 1991 (ISBN 84-600-7552-4). 100
pages, map, paper. Price: Ptas 500.
A new checklist of the vascular flora (species and
subspecies) of Andalusia, or rather a new, updated edition of
the one previously published by Fernández & al. (in
Blancoana 7: 3-68. 1989). Same as its predecessor, it has
been compiled from a variety of published sources, but has
been updated and improved, using recent data from e.g. Flora
iberica and Med-Checklist. A list of important
synonyms is appended, followed by a second list with names
unassessed as to their possible synonymy, many of them of
varietal rank. A third list comprises doubtful, improbable
records. For all accepted taxa the known distribution by
province is listed, and the occurrence in the four
neighbouring provinces (Badajoz, Ciudad Real, Albacete,
Murcia) is mentioned when known.
- Carlos Fernández-López Revisiones de
plantas vasculares de la Península Ibérica e Islas
Baleares. Un elenco hasta 1991.
Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Jaén, 1992
(ISBN 84-600-8140-0). 65 pages, paper. Price: Ptas
500.
This, again, is an update of an earlier paper, by the same
author (in Blancoana 5: 53-135. 1987). The increase in number
of references is substantial (from 1100 to 1700) and mostly
concerns recently published papers. The term
"revision" is used in a very wide sense, to include
any taxonomic change or chorological addition concerning
Iberian or Balearic vascular plants. This list of references
by families and genera will therefore be of potential use to
Mediterranean botanists in general.
- Mariella Azzarello Di Misa Il fondo antico
della biblioteca dellOrto Botanico di Palermo. [Sicilia/Biblioteche, 9.] Sezione per i
beni bibliografici, Sopraintendenza per i beni
culturali e ambientali, Regione siciliana, Palermo,
1988. 397 pages, colour facsimiles, paper.
This inventory of the old, often very rare books present
in the PAL library is truly impressive. It lists 744 items,
with bibliographically accurate details on the edition (and
the Palermo copy, when appropriate), all published between
1537 and about 1850. While the Italian literature naturally
predominates, other countries are also well represented,
testifying of the links between scientists of those times,
and presumably nobility as well. There are 9 full-page colour
facsimiles of old (mainly botanical) illustrations to add
pleasantness to the otherwise very academic contents of the
book.
- Hüsnü Demiriz An annotated bibliography
of Turkish flora and vegetation. Türkiye flora
ve vejetasyonu bibliografyasi. Tübitak
(Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknik Arastirma Kurumu),
[Ankara], [1993]. xviii + 670 pages, map, paper.
The list of references in this bibliography comprises
exactly 5000 items. With painstaking labour Demiriz has
checked them all, so as to be certain that the citations are
accurate and the contents reliably rendered. Thanks to
computerized data handling at the final pre-publication
stage, extensive indexing has been possible, resulting in a
seven-fold subject index: by major taxonomic groups, by
actual taxa, by geographical regions, localities, and grid
squares, by institutions, and by personal names. Whereas the
break-down is quite detailed for vascular plants (e.g., up to
about a dozen newly described taxa in a single paper are
indexed individually), non-vascular plants are much less
generously treated (mostly only by reference to the major
category). Whereas cryptogam specialists may therefore be
somewhat frustrated, "normal" botanists will
appreciate this as one of the best organized and most
informative bibliographies available for a Mediterranean
country.
Index
Biography
and historical subjects
- Filippo Parlatore Mie memorie. A cura
di Agnese Visconti. Sellerio, Palermo, 1992.
482 pages, 32 extra plates, of which 12 in colour,
paper with dust-cover. Price: Lit 50,000.
The manuscript of Parlatores autobiography is among
the papers he bequeathed to the municipal library in Palermo
and was unpublished to date. It is an admirably written text,
lively and fascinating, passionate and lucid, outraging and
endearing. Parlatore (1816-1877) must have been working on it
in the last days of his life and did not live to its
completion, since it ends with the year 1866. So personal is
the style that one doubts whether Parlatore would ever have
consented to its publication, and this is exactly what makes
the book so unique: it enables us to see the world in which
Parlatore lived and worked through his own eyes, it gives us
his very personal view of his contemporaries, among them many
botanists of his time, a view that not always flatters them
and need not always be fair but results from first-hand
knowledge and has not suffered the filter of courtesy and
inhibition. Apart from the ambient and flavour of his
discoveries we will learn little of immediate botanical
interest, except perhaps through some photographs of type
specimens from his herbarium inserted here and there, same as
a number of sample pages of his manuscripts and various other
documents. Yet this is a book which I can only commend as
pleasant and instructive reading to all who have an interest
in how the world in which we live has come about.
- Franco Pedrotti (ed.) La Società Botanica
Italiana per la protezione della natura (1888-1990). [Luomo
e lambiente, 14.] Università degli
Studi, Camerino, 1992. 181 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, laminated cover.
One must note the use of capital initials in the title: no
"Italian Botanical Society for Nature Conservation"
exists, but there has been a constant involvement of the
Italian Botanical Society in conservation efforts throughout
its existence. The present volume is a documentation and
review of these efforts. They tangibly start in 1891, three
years after the Societys creation, by an appeal for
safeguarding the single European papyrus population, near
Syracuse, against a project of draining the area an
appeal that was indeed successful at the highest governmental
levels and has resulted in the populations survival up
to the present days. The first part of the book is a
collection of the various motions and initiatives launched by
the Society in the following 100 years. The second half
includes a number of essays on the Societys activities
in various conservation-related fields, such as the
protection of the flora in general, of the forests, and of
specified areas. What became known as the "Censimento
dei biotopi", the inventory, between 1966 and 1979, of
563 areas worthy of protection, is certainly the
Societys most impressive single initiative. The
potential role of botanical gardens and herbaria, institution
that are of major concern to the Society, is underlined in
separate chapters.
Index
Reprints
- Francesco Facchini Flora Tiroliae
cisalpinae. Facsimile reprint: Comune di
Moena (Trento), 1989. [Original publication as: B.
von Hausmann Zur Flora Tirols. I. Heft. Dr.
Facchinis Flora von Südtirol. Innsbruck, 1855;
and as Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums, 5(3).
1855.] [8] + viii + 152 + [31] pages, paper with
dust-cover.
The first Flora of what is today the province of
Trentino-Alto Adige was published posthumously from
Facchinis manuscript, with an introduction and an
appendix of critical notes from the author of the Flora
von Tirol of 1851-1854, Hausmann. The reprint was
produced at the initiative of a symposium commemorating the
bicentenary of Facchinis (1788-1852) birth, at his home
municipality of Moena in Val di Fassa. Franco Pedrotti has
written a brief introduction, stressing the botanical
achievements of the physician Facchini, and has compiled a
new index to plant names and to cited localities.
- Philippe Parlatore Les collections
botaniques du Musée Royal de Physique et
dHistoire naturelle de Florence, au printemps de mdccclxxiv. Facsimile
reprint: [Erbario Tropicale & Museo Botanico
dellUniversità], Firenze, 1992. [Original
publication: Le Monnier, Firenze, 1874.]. 163 + [2]
pages, 17 uncoloured extra plates, explanatory notice
in English and Italian on loose sheet, paper.
Participants at the International Botanical Congress held
in Florence in 1874 were presented with a copy of
Parlatores new account of the Florence botanical
collections (now FI). The participants at the international
symposium on "Botanical collections and scientific
research", commemorating the 150th anniversary of the
Herbarium Centrale Italicum, in September 1992, were pleased
to find in their congress folder, along with the following
item, a reprint of that same book, simultaneously updated by
the new inventory of the HCI holdings mentioned above as item
N° 154. The facsimile includes no additional matter except
for the imprint at the end, and it differs from the original
by having the first seven plates reduced in size. Only 300
numbered copies have been printed.
- Filippo Parlatore Flora palermitana ossia
descrizione delle piante che crescono spontanee nella
valle di Palermo. Facsimile reprint: Accademia
Nazionale di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, già del
Buongusto, di Palermo, 1992. [Original publication:
Società Tipografica, Firenze, 1845.] 12 + xxii +
(442) pages, coloured frontispiece, cloth.
When Parlatore left his native Palermo in 1842 to be
appointed director of the Herbarium Centrale Italicum newly
created at his own suggestion, only two tiny fascicles of his
planned 3-volume Flora panormitana had been published,
and none of the plates. During his first busy years in the
new position he did not forget his former plans, but
restructured them into a new order (the natural not the
Linnean system) and layout. Unfortunately the second try, Flora
palermitana, remained just as much of a torso as the
first, since only one volume, with the first part of the
monocots, was ever published. Even so it is an important
work, including the description of three new genera and
several new species. Its bibliography is complicated by the
fact that it was published twice, as a book (here reprinted)
in 1845 and as a series of five or more instalments in
Parlatores own Giornale botanico italiano, between 1844 and at least 1847. Participants at the
international symposium on "Botanical collections and
scientific research", commemorating the 150th
anniversary of the Herbarium Centrale Italicum, were spoilt
by the gift of the present facsimile, offered by the Palermo
Academy, in addition to item N° 167 mentioned above. May we
perceive, in this noble gesture, a shade of regret by the
Sicilians bereft by Florence of their famous son, not ever to
achieve his former native projects? Perhaps; but even so, the
gesture of Palermo, benefiting so many botanists of our time,
remains a noble one. The reprint has 12 pages of introductory
text and presentations, plus a portrait of Parlatore in his
early manhood, in addition to the original text.
- C. S. Rafinesque Schmaltz Caratteri di
alcuni nuovi generi e nuove specie di animali e
piante della Sicilia. Facsimile reprint:
Accademia Nazionale di Scienze, Lettere e Arti di
Palermo, 1995. [Original publication: Sanfilippo,
Palermo, 1810.] xxvii + [2] + 105 + [1] pages, 20
uncoloured, folded extra plates, cloth.
Rafinesque, one of the most versatile and transnational of
the naturalists of his time, lived in Sicily from 1805 to
1815 where he was secretary to the American Consul, and
during that time he collected and described many of the
plants and animals of the island for the first time
much to the irritation of the slower-tempered local learned
men. As is well known, he lost all of his collections and
materials through shipwreck on his journey from Sicily to the
States, where he was to spend the rest of his busy life. The Caratteri are among his early publications and are an important
source of information on Sicilian plants and animals,
although they have been neglected by botanists in the past
and are apparently more popular with zoologists, especially
ichthyologists (botanists are just presently attempting to
get rid of the single surviving new generic phanerogam name
published here, Xolantha, proposed for rejection
against the junior but better known Tuberaria; and
algologists have yet to face disposal of the many old but
problematic algal names here validated). This reprint is
prefaced by a botanical introduction by Franco Raimondo and a
biographical sketch (including an Italian translation of
relevant portions of Rafinesques autobiography, A
life of travels) by Pavia zoologist Carlo Violani. A
previous facsimile reprint is said to have been published in
Holland in 1967, but is scarcely known and obviously no
longer available.
Index
Symposium
proceedings
- Connaissance et conservation de la flore des îles
de la Méditerranée. Ajaccio, Corse, France (5-8
octobre 1993). [Ecologia mediterranea, 21(1-2)].
Faculté des Sciences et Techniques de Saint
Jérôme, Marseille, 1995. [7] + 378 pages, 3
unpaginated subtitle sheets, black-and-white
illustrations, paper.
This Symposium marked the end of a 4-year EU-sponsored
research and conservation programme on the threatened flora
of Corsica, by the Regional Natural Park of Corsica and the
National Botanic Conservatory of Porquerolles. The goal of
the meeting was to assess possible threats faced by
Mediterranean island floras, to define conservational needs,
and to envisage appropriate internationally co-ordinated
action. The proceedings volume includes 34 papers (mostly in
French or English, two in Spanish, one in Italian) on the
Mediterranean flora in general, or on particular islands or
island groups, as well as on topics of conservation and
management. The conclusions and recommendations formulated by
the 84 Symposium participants are appended.
- Luís Villar (ed.) Botánica
pirenaico-cantábrica. (Actas del II Coloquio
Internacional de Botánica pirenaico-cantábrica)
Jaca, 3-5 de julio de 1989. Instituto de
Estudios Altoaragoneses, Huesca, & Instituto
Pirenaico de Ecología [Monografías, 5],
Jaca, 1990 (ISBN 84-86856-41-8). 733 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, laminated cover.
The first Colloquy of this series, organized by the
University of Toulouse, was held in La Cabanasse
(Pyrénées-Orientales) in 1986 and was restricted to
Pyrenean botany. The present one, with an enlarged
geographical coverage, was convened by the Instituto
Pirenaico de Ecología of the Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas, in Jaca. Its proceedings
include 69 papers in French, Spanish, or (a single one)
English, placed under seven different headings: cryptogamy
(8), floristics and chorology (12), taxonomy (16), ecology
(13), phytosociology (8), vegetation mapping (3), and a mixed
lot with conservation, forestry, and bee botany (9). A short
guide to the one-day congress excursion is appended.
- 150-HCI. Atti del Convegno Collezioni botaniche e
ricerca scientifica. Il significato delle
collezioni derbario per il progresso della
ricerca botanica. Proceedings of the Meeting
Botanical collections and scientific research. The
role of the herbarium collections for the progress of
the botanical research. [Webbia, 48.]
Museo Botanico dellUniversità, Firenze,
1993. [3] + 849 pages, black-and-white and some
colour illustrations, paper.
This sizeable proceedings volume includes some corollary
material, such as the account of the opening ceremony, the
text of two resolutions passed by the 137 congress members
(one on the natural history collections at Florence, one on
the Herbarium Mediterraneum Panormitanum), and most
particularly, at the end, a section devoted to the 80th
birthday celebration of Rodolfo Pichi Sermolli on September
19th. The latter, with laudatio, publication list and the
texts of seven lectures on various botanical subjects
presented on that occasion, is also available under separate
cover; it comprises pages 683-848. The core of the volume
(pages 33-682) is devoted to the 63 lectures and
communications of the symposium commemorating the 150th
anniversary of the Herbarium Centrale Italicum (see also
items Nos 154, 167-168, and 181). All relate to
herbaria, their history, holdings and problems, and taken
together they constitute a unique collection of data on that
subject. Except for two contributions in French, all texts
are in either Italian or English.
- L. Carimini & P. Ortolani (ed.) Atti
dellincontro "LOrto Botanico e il
verde di Camerino" (Camerino, 7 maggio
1988). [Luomo e lambiente, 11.]
Università degli Studi, Camerino, 1989. 89
pages, black-and-white illustrations, 2 drawings and
1 colour photograph on folded extra tables, laminated
cover.
A one-day symposium on the Botanical Garden of Camerino
and other park and garden areas of that city was held under
the auspices of the Botanic Gardens Working Group of the
Italian Botanical Society as part of that Societys
centenary celebrations. The Garden depends on the Renaissance
palace of the Dukes of Varano, in which the present Botany
and Ecology Department of the University and the to-be
Botanical Museum are situated. Among the seven papers (in
Italian) presented and here included, two deal with the
restoration of the Palazzo Ducale and its wall paintings, the
others being more botanically oriented.
- P. L. Nimis & M. Monte (ed.) Lichens
and monuments. Proceedings of the Symposium. Rome
21-24 IX 1988. [Studia geobotanica, 8.]
[Istituto di Botanica, Università degli Studi],
Trieste, 1988. 133 pages, black-and-white
illustrations, paper.
A specialist symposium devoted to the study of epi- and
endolithic lichens colonizing and deteriorating buildings and
monuments was convened by the Centro di Studio "Cause di
deperimento e metodi di conservazione delle opere
darte" in Rome under the auspices of the Società
Lichenologica Italiana. The 12 papers delivered on various
aspects of this subject (two in Italian, one in French, the
others in English) make of this volume an authoritative
source for art conservators and lichenologists alike.
- Nejc Jogan & Tone Wraber (ed.) Flora in
vegetacija Slovenije. Ob 50. obletnici smrti A.
Paulina (1853-1942) in 40. obletnici izida
"Seznama praprotnic in cvetnic slovenskega
ozemlja" E. Mayerja (1952). Zbornik povzetkov
referatov na simpoziju slovenskih botanikov v Krskem,
24.-26. 9. 1992. Drustvo Biologov Slovenije,
Ljubljana, 1992. 59 pages, some black-and-white
illustrations, paper.
The Austrian botanist Alphons Paulin was formerly director
of the botanical garden of the University of Ljubljana. On
the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, and also
to commemorate the fortieth jubilee of the publication of
Ernest Mayers Catalogue of the vascular flora of
Slovenia, the Slovenian Botanical Society organized a
three-day symposium on the flora and vegetation of Slovenia,
in Krsko (Gurkfeld). This fascicle, distributed at the
conference, includes abstracts, extended summaries or
previews of the 34 papers and one plenary lecture presented,
as well as a guide to the one-day excursion. Texts are mostly
in Slovenian or Croatian, exceptionally in English (1),
Italian (1), or German (2). On p. 47, the name of a new
species, Valeriana nemorensis Turk, is validly
published.
- S. Manôlês (ed.) Praktika 12ou Sunedriou
tês Ellênikês Etaireias Biologikôn Epistêmôn. 27-29
Apriliou 1990 Mutilênê. Ellênikê Etaireia
Biologikôn Epistêmôn, Athêna, 1992. xx + 337
pages, black-and-white illustrations, paper.
The Proceedings volume of the 12th Symposium of the Greek
Society for the Biological Sciences, held on the N.E. Aegean
Island of Lesbos, includes 123 papers on various biological
topics, all in Greek, some with an English abstract. They
have been reproduced directly from the original typescripts.
Topical subjects include lectures on Aristotle and
Theophrastos, on the fossil forest of Lesbos, and on a
project to investigate the flora of the E. Aegean Islands
(see also item N° 123). Other topics of botanical interest
(those dealing with plants studied or collected in the field)
are limited to ten papers on pages 37-66.
- Thomas Engel, Wolfgang Frey & Harald
Kürschner (ed.) Contributiones selectae ad
floram et vegetationem Orientis. Proceedings of
the Third Plant Life of Southwest Asia Symposium,
Berlin 1990. [Flora et vegetatio mundi, 9.]
Cramer/Borntraeger, Berlin & Stuttgart,
1991 (ISBN 3-443-66001-0). viii + 324 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, cloth. Price: DM 160.
The first Plant life of South West Asia Symposium took
place in Edinburgh in 1970, the second again in Edinburgh, 15
years later (see OPTIMA Newsl. 20-24: (59). 1988). Number
three, in Berlin this time, came after just five more years.
The editors of the nicely published Proceedings volume have
not attempted at completeness but have operated a selection
among the many contributions that had been presented. Still,
the topics included cover a wide range, as is explained in
the preface: from systematics and taxonomy, evolution and
life strategies of taxa with a speciation centre in
South-West Asia, development and structure of natural
vegetation, evolution and ecology of cultivated and
synanthropic plants, to nature protection, human action on
the environment, and the question of future research
priorities. Most of the 28 papers are in English, as are all
the abstracts, but two are in German and one is in French.
Several contributions concern the taxonomy and chorology of
Oriental plants, and some include nomenclatural novelties.
Two new sections of Astragalus are described and
named, as well as one new Pterocephalus species and
one new subspecies of Halothamnus bottae; furthermore,
if somewhat marginally, the new name Bromus tectorum subsp. lucidus is validated.
- Münir A. Öztürk, Ümit Erdem & Güven Görk
(ed.) Urban ecology. Ege University
Press, Izmir, 1991 (ISBN 975-483-153-x). xi + 427
pages, black-and-white illustrations, paper.
This is the Proceedings volume of the 2nd International
Urban Ecology Symposium, held at Didim (Aydin) on 5-10 June,
1991. In comprises 45 papers, all in English, reproduced
without editing from the submitted typescripts. Problems of
large agglomerations such as pollution and its
(bio-)monitoring are in the focus, as is the impact of
urbanization on the natural environment. Weed communities are
another topic of botanical interest that is here discussed.
One may question the editors statement that our
children, meaning the human race, is an endangered (rather
than endangering) species, but will have to agree that the
problems here highlighted are real and urgent, and that they
concern us all.
Index
Abstract
volumes
- Ana Petrova (ed.) OPTIMA. Organization for
the Phyto-Taxonomic Investigation of the
Mediterranean Area. Abstracts. VII Meeting. Bulgaria. 18-30 July, 1993. Organisation pour
lEtude Phyto-Taxonomique de la Région
Méditerranéenne. Résumés. VIIe Colloque. Bulgarie. [OPTIMA], Borovec, 1993.
186 pages, paper.
The one-page French (15) and English (157) abstracts
submitted by authors of 42 lectures and 130 poster
presentations prior to the 7th OPTIMA Meeting are reproduced
photomechanically. The Proceedings are expected to be
published early in 1996 in the Palermo serial Bocconea.
- Benito Valdés (ed.) VIII OPTIMA Meeting.
Sevilla, 25 September - 1 October, 1995. Abstracts. VIIIe Colloque dOPTIMA. Sevilla, 25 Septembre - 1
Octobre, 1995. Resumés. OPTIMA, [Sevilla],
1995. 139 pages, paper.
The half-page French (24) and English (161) abstracts
submitted by authors of 50 lectures and 135 poster
presentations prior to the 7th OPTIMA Meeting are reproduced
photomechanically. The Proceedings are expected to be
published in the Sevilla journal Lagascalia.
- 150-HCI. Collezioni botaniche e ricerca
scientifica. Botanical collections and scientific
research. Firenze, 16-18 sett./Sept. 1992. Abstracts
of lectures and communications. Museo
Botanico dellUniversità, Firenze, 1992. 72
pages, 1 addendum on loose sheet, paper.
This fascicle comprises the one-page English abstracts of
the 63 lectures and communications presented at the 150-HCI
Symposium, reproduced photomechanically as submitted by their
authors. The Proceedings have been published at the end of
1993 as a full volume (48) of the journal Webbia (see
item N° 172).
Index
New
periodicals
- Lactarius. Boletín de la Asociación
Micológica. Biología vegetal, Facultad de
Ciencias experimentales, Jaén (ISSN 1132-2365). 1
(1992), [2] + 37 pages; 2 (1993), [2] + 54 pages; 3
(1994), [2] + 80 pages. Price (Nos 2 and
3): Ptas 200 each.
This new mycological bulletin includes a variety of items,
from society news and cooking recipes to popular and
scientific papers.
- Botanica rhedonica. Nouvelle série. Revue de
biologie végétale. Département de Biologie
végétale, Université de Rennes (ISSN 0374-1885). 1
(1988), 102 pages; 2 (1989), 141 pages. Available on
exchange or sale (price not indicated).
The new series of Botanica rhedonica replaces
"série A" of the original run, of which 18 issues
were published between 1966 and 1985. Subject coverage is
wide in principle, but in practice the journal concentrates
on a few topics such as regional botany, ecology, and
bryophytes. Printing costs are charged to the authors. No
recent issues have been received.
- Quaderni di botanica ambientale e applicata.
Dipartimento di scienze botaniche, Università di
Palermo (ISSN 1121-3752). 1 (1990), 246 pages, 2
coloured folded maps in pouch; 2 ("1991"
[1992]), 111 pages, 12 coloured folded maps in pouch;
3 ("1992" [1994]), 235 pages, 2 coloured
folded maps in pouch.
Judging from the papaers in the first three issues (all in
Italian), the subject profile of this new journal can be
defined as: Regional botany at its interface with Man.
Conservation, ecology, pollution, diversity, ethnobotany,
cultivated plants, are among the favourite topics. Studies on
or involving lower cryptogams are welcome. The presentation
standard is high, and colour illustrations are not strictly
excluded.
- Anthophoros. Center for the protection
of the Greek flora, Alimou & 2 Vyzantiou,
GR-16452 Athens. 1994(1-4), [4] + [4] + [4] + [4]
pages; 1995(1-2), 8 + 8 pages.
All published texts, if signed [and presumably the
anonymous ones as well], are authored by Greek amateur
naturalist, painter and nature photographer George Sfikas,
except for two that are co-authored by or credited to his
wife, Chrysanthi. This is a modest, coverless DIN A4-size
leaflet, but generously illustrated with drawings, maps, and
some stuck-in colour photographs. The subject is Greek
floristics with an emphasis on rare and threatened plants,
but not disdaining new introductions or naturalizations. So
far, some quite interesting or even exciting new finds have
been reported, which are duly documented by specimens in the
Centers (Sfikass) herbarium.
- Bulletin, National Herbarium, Faculty of
Science, Al-Faateh University, Tripoli, Libya.
1 (1990), [3] + 36 pages; 2 ("1991"
[1991]), [2] + 38 pages; 3 ("1992" [1994]),
[5] + 20 + vi pages.
As stated by the editor [El-Gadi?] when introducing the
new journal, it will be published casually. Casual editing,
as one can see, involves a few peculiarities. While Arabic
papers are consistently placed at the back and English ones
at the front (as Europeans see it), pagination in the first
two issues runs continuously back-to-front, but with the
delicate nuance that in N° 1 the English papers have a
descending pagination, whereas in N° 2 pagination is
ascending but you have to read back-to-front; only in N° 3
is the problem (provisionally?) solved by a double pagination
running in contrary directions. The meeting point of the two
portions is error-prone, as shown in N° 1 where the
bibliography on pages 13-14, belonging to the Arab paper at
the end, is credited to the last English paper in the table
of contents. The Bulletin has no ISSN number as normal
scientific journals have, but Nos 2 and 3 have got
an ISBN number as if they were books; these must, however, be
fancy numbers since they differ only in the last digit, which
is a control digit (i.e., it cannot be different if the first
9 digits are identical), and furthermore they belong to the
publisher Koeltz Scientific Books in Königstein, Germany,
although the name Koeltz does not appear in print (the
fascicles can, apparently, be bought through Koeltz at the
fancy rate of about US$1 per printed page)! Contents are
extremely mixed, with some papers on agronomic, embryological
and phycological subjects, and others (which are of some
interest) updating the published volumes of Flora of Libya (see item N° 47, above) by new additions, mostly of
introduced aliens.
- Ot[.] Sistematik botanik dergisi. The Herb[.]
Journal of systematic botany. Privately
published (by Sinasi Yildirimli, PK 663, PTT
Yenisehir, TR-06444 Mithatpasa, Ankara) (ISBN
1300-2953). N° 1(1) (1994), [3] + vi + 62
pages; N° 1(2) (1995), [4] + 82 pages.
Available free (exchange appreciated).
One might be easily deceived by the title, but this is not
a journal on pharmacognosy, not a "Herb
journal". To avoid confusion, its main title, The
Herb, should be set off typographically against the
subtitle which indicates what the journal is about:
systematic botany. This, as the "Instructions to
authors" explain, is intended in the broad sense, to
include floristics, plant geography, economic botany,
ethnobotany, and anatomy, palynology, cytology or
phytochemistry when used in a systematic context. Coverage
is, in principle, limited to vascular plants, and papers in
Turkish are preferred even though a number of other European
languages, plus Latin, are acceptable. The first two issues,
especially the second one which is quite international in
authorship, exemplify nicely what is intended: species new to
science or to a given country (mainly Turkey, at least for
the time being) alternate with contributions of a more local
interest. The journal, entirely financed as it seems from the
publishers own pocket, shows promise.
[author: Werner Greuter]
Please send all items for
review directly to the author of this column:
Prof. Dr. Werner GREUTER,
Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem
Freie Universität Berlin
Königin-Luise-Straße 6-8
D-14191 Berlin, Germany.
Phone: (+4930) 838-50132 or 8316010
Fax: (+4930) 838-50218
E-mail: wg@zedat.fu-berlin.de.
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