Plant Science Bulletin

The Plant Science Bulletin (Print: ISSN 0032-0919, Electronic: ISSN 1537-9752) is an informal communication published four times a year, with information on upcoming meetings, courses, field trips, news of colleagues, new books, and professional opportunities. It provides a means of advertising items or materials wanted. It also serves as a forum for circulating BSA committee reports, for distributing innovative teaching approaches and methods, and for discussing issues of concern to Society members such as environmental policy and educational funding.

SEARCH ALL ISSUES | ANNOUNCEMENTS | CAREER OPPORTUNITIES | LAST ISSUE - SUMMER, 2008

FALL 2008

Table of Contents

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
    In Memoriam
       » R. C. Jackson (1928-2008)
       » Arthur Galston (1920-2008)
       » Charles Adam Schexnayder (1926-2008)
    Other News
       » Brooklyn Botanic Garden Announces Summer Highlights - Reflections: Water in the Garden
       » Chicago Botanic Garden to Break Ground on Rice Plant Conservation Science Center
       » African Journal of Plant Science (AJPS)
       » International Organization Launched to Address Problems in Cultivated Plant Taxonomy
       » Revealing Double Lecture Explores the Shroud of Turin - Missouri Botanical Garden
       » Dr. Brent Elliott Receives Greensfelder Medal from the Missouri Botanical Garden
    BOOKS REVIEWED
    BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVEIW

Announcements

In Memoriam

R. C. Jackson (1928-2008)

Raymond Carl Jackson, Horn professor emeritus at Texas Tech University, died on April 7, 2008 following a long illness.

Dr. Jackson grew up in rural Indiana and fell in love with nature as a boy. He and his other love from Indiana, June, were married in 1947. After three years of service in the U.S. Army Air Corps-U.S. Air Force, Ray entered Indiana University in 1949 earning a BA in 1952. Upon completing his Master’s degree at Indiana, he moved on to Purdue in 1953 where he earned a Ph.D. in 1955.

Ray's fondness for the Asteraceae began at IU thanks to some persuasion from his mentor and long-time colleague and friend, Charles Heiser. Soon after graduation, he packed up his wife, two-year-old son and newborn daughter, and moved cross-country to Albuquerque (UNM) where he accepted a faculty position that included herbarium curator. Here he continued working on Helianthus and other local composites, most notably, Haplopappus. It was in New Mexico that he encountered the unassuming desert annual Haplopappus gracilis and found it to have n=2 chromosomes, the lowest number ever reported for a plant. Realizing the potential goldmine of this easy to culture, short life-cycled composite as a model for chromosomal, genomic and genetic linkage studies, Ray shifted his focus to cytogenetics – a shift that coincided with a career move to the University of Kansas in 1958. Here he flourished professionally, becoming a leading figure in cytogenetics and plant biosystematics. In 1969 he was appointed Chair of the Botany Department at KU and served in that role until 1971 when he accepted the chairship of the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University.

In the 1980’s Ray became an authority on chromosome pairing behavior in polyploids, proposing and testing models based on random synapsis and non-random distribution of chiasmata. He modified and applied these models to diploids, triploids, and tetraploids through octoploids. He also proposed similar models for predicting meiotic behavior in translocation heterozygotes.

Ray published eighty-some peer-reviewed articles throughout his prosperous professional career including three in Science. He was a member of several honor societies including Sigma Xi, Phi Sigma, and Delta Phi Alpha (a national German language honor society); and an active member of many professional societies serving in several capacities including editor of the University of Kansas Science Bulletin and of the Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science; associate editor of Evolution; chair and founding member of the Genetics Section of BSA; founding member of the Mid-continent Section of BSA; Chair of the Botanical Section of AAAS-SWARM Div.; and President of AAAS-SWARM Div., to name a few. Throughout his career he was recognized with many honors and awards including the BSA Merit Award, the BSA Centennial Award, the AAAS-SWARM President’s Award, Outstanding Educator of America (1974-75), and an annual award established in his name for outstanding student presentation in the Mid-continent section of the BSA. But perhaps the ultimate honor was in 1996 when he was eponymized with the genus Rayjacksonia in the Asteraceae. The family suggests memorials to the Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University. Type in “biology” in the search window on the On-line Giving page (https://securejava.tosm.ttu.edu/onlineGiving/landing.do) to select an endowed fund.

-Don Hauber, Department of Biological Sciences, Loyola University

Arthur Galston, Ph.D. (1920-2008)

Arthur Galston passed away the second week of June 2008 after a short illness serving as Professor Emeritus from the Yale University Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology in his retirement. He served as President of the Botanical Society of America (1968) wherein he and Graeme Berlyn resurrected the Physiological Section (from the large number of members who had switched to the American Society of Plant Physiologists from the BSA). Galston also served as President of the ASPP. He was awarded a series of academic honors, including Guggenheim, Fulbright and Senior National Science Foundation Fellowships, both Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi visiting lectureships, and two honorary degrees. His research concerned plant photobiology, hormones, protoplasts and polyamines. The research contribution for which he is most noted is his suggestion and first evidence of the role of riboflavin (not carotene) as the photoreceptor for phototropism first published in 1949 in the American Journal of Botany 36: 773-780. 1949 (also PNAS 35: 10-17, 1949; Science 111: 619-624, l950). He published more than 320 papers in refereed journals, as well as more than 50 articles on public affairs, several successful textbooks of plant physiology and two edited anthologies of papers in bioethics. (This suggestion has recently been proven by others, notably the laboratories of Winslow Briggs.)

He was a leading plant physiologist in the 1940s to 1970s in the Botanical Society of America and American Society of Plant Physiologists, both of which he belonged to throughout his life and continued to contribute. In his lifetime he contributed not only to Botany, but to International Relations, especially in the Far East and to the field of Bioethics. He was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1920. Galston received his undergraduate degree from Cornell, and Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Illinois in 1943, then spent a year at Yale and then became an assistant then associate professor at the California Institute of Technology. He returned to Yale in 1955 as an Associate Professor of Plant Physiology in the former Department of Botany. He retired in 1990, at the (then mandatory) retirement age of 70 and subsequently began teaching and doing research in Bioethics. His unhappiness with the government use of Agent Orange as a bio-weapon in Vietnam caused him great personal distress so that he instituted at the BSA Business Meeting in 1967 a coalition of botanists and eventually other scientists who finally testified before the US Congress and were important in ceasing the use of Agent Orange on the battlefield. He made contact with the Chinese during his travels to Vietnam and lived in China, becoming friends with Chou En-Lai. This helped pave the way for the BSA exchange delegation to China in 1978 wherein we were asked frequently about Professor Galston.

In his own words: “In 1936, at the age of sixteen, I found myself enrolling as a freshman in the College of Agriculture at Cornell University, where, importantly, tuition was free for residents of New York state. I came not to study botany, but to spend one year of study required as a prelude to entry into the College of Veterinary Medicine at the same institution, where tuition was also free. Veterinary medicine was also not my burning passion: Inspired by Paul de Kruif's "Microbe Hunters" and similar books, my true aspiration had always been to become an M.D. But the year was 1936, The Great Depression was on the land, my father had been out of work for several years, and there seemed not the slightest possibility of my being able to enter the long and expensive study required to become a physician. A friend happened to tell me about the Agriculture and Veterinary Schools at Cornell, where "the price was right". Since I was confident that I could use my saxophone-playing skills to earn my living expenses, after an arduous freshman year and a successful application for admission to the Veterinary School, I declined the offer of entry by then Dean William A. Hagan, and remained in the College of Agriculture to major in Botany.

“The reason for this unanticipated change in direction was, simply, infatuation with Professor Loren C. Petry, who taught the yearlong course in Elementary Botany. Not only his remarkably skillful lectures, but also his entire persona attracted me. I so admired him that I wanted nothing more than to imitate his life style, impractical though that might have been. The attractiveness of the academic career, with its opportunities in teaching and research, seemed to me an ideal worth pursuing. So I stayed on in Botany, but deviated from Petry in choosing to concentrate on plant physiology rather than on his specialty of paleobotany.

“Cornell was then a center of excellence in the plant sciences. I took advantage of this excellence by enrolling in every possible botany course, then bootlegged as many College of Liberal Arts and Sciences courses in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and geology as were permitted to students in the Agriculture school. I emerged with a BS in Botany in 1940. In the depression year of 1940 I received only one offer of a Teaching Assistantship to support my graduate study, which I gratefully accepted. In the fall of 1940, I ventured into the terra incognita of the American Midwest, to begin my graduate study in the Department of Botany at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. After a year of looking around, I chose to work with Harry Fuller, a plant physiologist who was a brilliant lecturer and coauthor, with another young faculty member, Oswald Tippo, of an outstanding textbook in Botany. Fuller introduced me to the world of plant hormones and photoperiodism that were the subject of my 1943 PhD dissertation. Unfortunately, because World War II had engulfed the United States in December 1941, Fuller was not able to give me much guidance, for when the Japanese conquest of Malaysia made rubber unavailable to the Allies, he was sent on an extended mission to South America to locate remnant stands of Hevea brasiliensis. He remained absent for several years, and I thus muddled through my research pretty much on my own, except for occasional critiques by mail. Under a wartime mandate, I had to finish my graduate work in three years, working full time every summer. I felt short-changed, because of the shortened period of study and also deprivation of my advisor.

“I had expected induction into military service immediately after the receipt of my degree, but again, serendipity intervened to change the course of my life. I had taken several courses in biochemistry, including a lively literature seminar run by a young faculty member, Herbert Carter. While every other student reported on animal and microbial biochemistry, I spoke on such topics as photosynthesis (Ruben, Kamen, and Hassid), auxin (Thiemann, Bonner) and "florigen" (Chailakhian). Carter was delighted with my "atypical" presentations. Convinced that I could be of greater use to the country as a scientist than as a soldier, Carter arranged for me to join Bonner's group at Caltech, working on the Emergency Rubber Project, which sought to convert the Mexican shrub, guayule (Parthenium argentatum Gray), into an important rubber-producing plant. This was an exciting and ultimately successful project, whose potential importance was short-circuited by the simultaneous success of the synthetic rubber program. Finally drafted, I joined the Navy as an enlisted man, and after many vicissitudes, served as Natural Resources officer in Naval Military Government on Okinawa.

“By the time I was slated for discharge in the spring of 1946, my wife and I had become parents, and since all four grandparents lived in New York City, I was urged to find a job in the east, despite an offer of continued employment at Caltech. I spent the academic year of 1946-7 as an Instructor at Yale. I then spent nine happy and productive years in Pasadena, first as Research Fellow, and ultimately as tenured Associate Professor. I flourished in the plant physiology group led by Went and Bonner, with young colleagues like Sam Wildman and George Laties, and frequent contact with outstanding scientists like George Beadle, Linus Pauling, Max Delbruck, and Richard Feynman. Yet early in 1955, mainly for family reasons, I succumbed to an attractive offer from Oswald Tippo, newly appointed Chairman of Botany at Yale, to return to Yale as a full Professor. This was an important fork in the road for me; before the move, I was doing experiments mainly with my own hands, but thereafter I was greatly involved in planning, equipping, and staffing laboratories, teaching courses, and overseeing the research of numerous grad students and postdocs. This was fulfilling work, but very different from Caltech! In 1961, working with Edgar J. Boell, I was instrumental in fusing Botany with Zoology to form the Department of Biology, and planned the first unified Biology course taught by the new Department. In 1966-7, I served as Director of the Division of Biological Sciences and in 1985-8, was Chairman of Biology. I opposed the dismemberment of Biology into MCDB and EEB, but note with pleasure the recent strengthening of organismal biology in EEB.

“Since retirement, I have been associated with the Institution for Social & Policy Studies, and serve on its Executive Committee for the Interdisciplinary Bioethics Project. For 12 years, I taught College Seminars in Bioethics, and for two years, have taught a new introductory bioethics course in Yale College, which in 2003-4, attracted more than 460 students, making it one of the largest courses in Yale College.

“My major research contribution, made at Caltech, was to provide the first evidence for flavin-based photoreception. This heterodox idea, opposed by many pundits who favored carotenoids, including Thiemann, Went, Bünning, Skoog, and Nobelist George Wald, led me into difficulties with granting agencies, and I accordingly shifted my research to other areas. Time has proved this to have been a mistake; one need only note the outstanding recent results in flavin photoreception achieved by Briggs et al. with phototropins and by Cashmore et al. with cryptochromes.

“Two other "decision points" affected my life greatly. From 1956 to 1978, I had been a consultant to DuPont, and at one point was tempted by an opportunity to leave academia for industry. It was mainly my love of teaching and contact with students that deterred me. The second critical decision developed out of our government's use of Agent Orange and other chemicals to defoliate and kill vegetation during the war in Vietnam. This violated my deepest feelings about the constructive role of science, and moved me into active opposition to official U.S. policy. Starting with the business meeting in 1967, and working with like-minded colleagues around the country, I began a time-consuming and distracting campaign against this type of chemical warfare (Galston, 2001). Our small group was eventually successful in helping to change our country's policy, when President Nixon ordered the end of the spraying at the end of 1970, almost five years before the end of the war. Since we now know that Agent Orange contained significant levels of teratogenic dioxins, this was an important accomplishment. It was followed by five visits to Vietnam and six to China, including the honor, with Ethan Signer of MIT, of being the first American scientists invited to visit the People's Republic of China. In 1971, we met Chou En-lai, then Prime Minister, as well as King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, who then resided in Shanghai. This pre-Kissinger-Nixon visit to China, as well as my family's subsequent (1972) summer on an agriculture commune (Galston, 1973) was page 1 news in many newspapers, including the New York Times.

“Agent Orange also seems to have turned on other activist genes in my makeup, and since then I have been drawn increasingly by an interest in the social and ethical consequences of scientific research. After my mandatory retirement from Biology in 1990, I helped to organize a Bioethics Project at Yale, and am now an active member of that group, teaching, leading seminars, and helping to plan activities. Life does play funny tricks with our career plans!"

LITERATURE CITED
Briggs WR, Huala E (1999) Blue-light photoreceptors in higher plants. Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol 15: 33-62
Briggs, WR, Jarillo JA, Wu YJ, Liu D (1999) Cryptochromes: blue light receptors for plants and animals. Science 284: 760-765
Galston AW (1973) Daily Life in People's China. Thomas Y. Crowell, New York
Galston AW (2001) Falling leaves and ethical dilemmas: Agent Orange in Vietnam. In A.W. Galston, E.G. Shurr, eds, New Dimensions in Bioethics. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands

-Anitra Thorhaug and Graeme Berlyn. School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Yale University.

Charles Adam Schexnayder (1926-2008)

Charles Adam Schexnayder, professor emeritus of LSU and husband of Claire Brown Schexnayder, passed away at 1 a.m. Wednesday, June 4, 2008, at his home. He was born on April 18, 1926, at Lauderdale Plantation in St. James Parish. He had been ill for almost a year with pulmonary fibrosis. He graduated from White Castle High School in 1943, joined the Naval Aviation Program and studied to be a naval aviator in World War II. Following the cessation of hostilities of the war, he enrolled at LSU, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in vocational agriculture in 1948, a master's degree in botany in 1950 and a Ph.D. in plant pathology in 1953. Upon completion of his degree in plant pathology, he worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the Houma Federal Field Station with a specialty in sugar cane production. In 1958, he was offered a position working with the South Puerto Rico Sugar Corp. in La Romana, Dominican Republic, where he worked as a plant pathologist and plant breeder with sugar cane in the area of agronomy research. After four years, he moved his family back to the United States and joined LSU with the Department of Plant Pathology and Botany. He served on the LSU faculty in 1962 as professor and chairman of botany for 12 years. He was appointed director of International Programs through the LSU Agriculture Center. Dr. Schexnayder accepted a position in Jamaica in 1988, where he worked to build an agriculture college in Port Antonio on the Caribbean. The project was sponsored by LSU and the Department of State for the benefit of Third World countries. Much of his work with international programs was performed in West African countries as chief of party providing educational programs for helping African natives to cultivate crops for their livelihood. He retired as professor emeritus in 1991 due to developing problems with his health.

He is survived by his wife, Claire Brown Schexnayder; daughter, Jacqueline Schexnayder MacMurdo Schneider and husband Brian; son, Dr. Michael Schexnayder and wife Charlene Curole Schexnayder; and five grandchildren, Christopher James MacMurdo, Ross Bailey MacMurdo, Laura Elise Schexnayder, Charles Michael Schexnayder and Matthew Steven Walker. Also survived by his brothers, Jean Manfred Schexnayder and wife Sandra, Harold Joseph Schexnayder and wife Mary Janice, and Lawrence Schexnayder and wife Jill.

-Russell L. Chapman, Ph D., FLS, Executive Director, Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation 0202, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093.

Other News

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Announces Summer Highlights - Reflections: Water in the Garden

Find cool relief from the sizzling summer heat at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) with its Reflections: Water in the Garden interpretive program highlights, from July 12 through September 7, 2008. In the glittering reflection of BBG’s exquisite aquatic features, visitors can experience the many diverse displays of water throughout the “gardens within the Garden,” learn more about water and conservation, and explore how plants use and live in and around water. Reflections: Water in the Garden is BBG’s first-ever program focusing on its exhilarating water features and offers visitors an interactive self-guided tour of the aquatic elements of BBG, free guided strolls, special educational workshops for children and adults, and more.

The sound of a trickling brook calms the nerves, the glassy surface of a pond inspires contemplation, and the playful jets of fountains elicit joy. Water itself is an essential element, vital to all living things. Reflections: Water in the Garden invites visitors to revel in BBG’s distinctive landscape—including fountains, water lily pools, a running brook, small waterfalls, and an interactive water table for kids. Interpretive panels at some of the most popular water features and colorful informative signs about flora living in or near them will introduce visitors to the myriad ways plants interact with water.

Visitors can pick up a special Reflections brochure and embark on a self-guided adventure or meet one of BBG’s enthusiastic Garden Guides for a FREE Reflections tour and receive a narrated introduction to the featured water displays. On Tuesdays, FREE Reflections tours begin at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., as well as 3 p.m. on weekends. The Reflections tour will supplement the popular 1 p.m. free Seasonal Highlights tour.

Reflections: Water in the Garden will highlight ten areas within the Garden, each of which is anchored by water. An interpretive placard nearby also includes other interesting plants in the immediate area. Compelling, on-site interpretive text helps visitors learn about wetland plant species, submerged and emergent ecosystems, and other water-related topics. Highlighted water features in the Garden include the elegant Rose Arc Pool, where the Call of the Sea statue is enveloped by cattails (Typha species) and celebrates the freedom and vitality of open water. The Native Flora Garden’s bog, pond, and ephemeral stream, which represent water habitats native to this region that play a vital role in sustaining plant and animal life in the Northeast.

Throughout the summer, visitors will experience the colorful Discovery Carts with hands-on water-related activities for the whole family. The Gardener’s Resource Center will help visitors find answers to frequently asked water questions and inspire them with a collection of beautiful books on water gardening, rain gardens, and water features in breathtaking gardens around the world.

The Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery will present Reflections in Collage: Works by Diane Miller, an exhibit of striking collage work that echoes the movement and textures of BBG’s water features. Miller’s unique collages are inspired by the rocks, trees, mists, clouds, and rain of the North Temperate Zone, and offer a vision of unpolluted nature full of dramatic movement and the textures of the earth.

In the Wonderful Water Plants! Discovery Workshops (Sunday, July 13 and Sunday, August 10, 2–4 p.m.), children will experience the Garden’s interactive water table and learn all about water plants. On Special Reflections Saturdays (Saturday, July 26 and Saturday, August 16, 2–4 p.m.), water-related mini-workshops will include potting up a water plant or making a pond postcard and can be enjoyed by visitors of all ages.

A container water garden display will be featured near the Terrace Café during the summer season, adding to the sensual pleasure of dining in the Garden. Home gardeners will be inspired to incorporate water into their own garden designs. And to help them get started, the Garden Shop and Gift Shop will offer a special collection of interesting plants, fountains, books, and other water-inspired gifts.

Romi Ige, manager of interpretation at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, says, “We are very excited to present Reflections: Water in the Garden and to offer our summer visitors an opportunity to cool off beside the myriad water features of Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Whether reveling in the lushness of the Native Flora Garden, relaxing in the shady calm of the brook and terminal pond, or gazing at the stunning composition of the lily pools, visitors of all ages will be able to learn about plants while experiencing the multisensory pleasures of water.” Ige adds, “Water has a unique capability to alter or reflect a range of emotions given all of its many permutations, from shooting sprays to placid pools to gurgling brooks to splashing waterfalls—water ignites the senses.”

In addition, there will be a special Reflections-themed display in exhibition cases in the Rotunda. It will feature herbarium specimens of aquatic plants and illustrations of water-lilies and lotuses from the Garden’s rare-book and Florilegium Society collections. Patricia Jonas, director of Library Services, is also utilizing the Library’s new tagging feature to identify and showcase nearly 100 books from the BBG Library that amplify the Summer Interpretative program. Going to the online catalog on the BBG Library pages and typing “Reflections” in the tag field will allow visitors to look at Jonas’s recommendations or create their own personalized water-based book list to share with family and friends.

During the Reflections: Water in the Garden Opening Day Celebration, July 12 from noon to 4:30 p.m., the festivities will pay tribute to the wonderful water features of BBG. Visitors will have a special opportunity to meet one of BBG’s curators who maintain and nurture the plants in our Living Collections. The knowledgeable Garden Guides will offer tours highlighting the water features through out the Garden. Robin Simmen, director of Brooklyn GreenBridge, will offer a free informative workshop, “Creating a Rain Garden.”

CONTACT: Leeann Lavin, 718-623-7289 or Kate Blumm, 718-623-7241

Chicago Botanic Garden to Break Ground on Rice Plant Conservation Science Center

The Chicago Botanic Garden has announced that it will break ground June 3 on the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center, a facility designed to serve as an international center for plant conservation research and home to the nation’s only doctoral program in plant biology and conservation.

When completed in fall of 2009, the 36,000-square-foot Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center will provide state-of-the-art laboratories and teaching facilities for over 200 PhD scientists, land managers, students, and research staff, and will include teaching facilities required for a unique doctoral program in plant biology and conservation that the Chicago Botanic Garden will conduct with Northwestern University.

While the Chicago Botanic Garden has conducted a plant conservation research program for more than ten years, the Rice Center will enable the Garden to expand research capabilities into the study of native plants for medicinal and economic benefits, reproductive biology, seed biology and population genetics, and soil research that could lead to better understanding of the manner in which native plant habitats can absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

The building will feature a viewing gallery designed to provide the Garden’s 760,000 visitors with an opportunity to see Garden plant scientists at work. It will also feature a 10,000 square-foot living green roof, open to the public to demonstrate the best plants for green roofs in the Midwest.

Designed by Booth Hansen, the Rice Center will use materials and systems to earn a “gold” rating for sustainable design from the U. S. Green Building Council.

The groundbreaking ceremony will be preceded on June 2 with an afternoon “Seeds for the Future” ceremony involving students from three Chicago Public Schools. Together with Garden scientists, the students will contribute items to a “Seeds for the Future” time capsule, which will be placed in the Rice Center to be opened in 50 years.

Why Save Plants?
According to the World Conservation Union, 30 percent of the world’s plants are threatened with extinction by 2050. Since plants provide all the necessities of life, food, shelter, clothing, medicine and oxygen, the continued loss of plant life poses enormous threats to the health and well being of humans.

The new Rice Center will provide the facilities to enable the Garden to conduct research that will impact the work of those trying to save plants around the world.

For example, the Chicago Botanic Garden is on a mission to collect 20,000 seeds from each of the 1,500 native plant species of the tall grass prairie, one of the world’s most threatened ecosystems, now reduced to less than 0.01 percent of its former range. The Rice Center will provide the seed banking equipment and facilities to bank seed more effectively, seeds that one day may cure disease, provide food for millions or become viable parts of healthy ecosystems.

African Journal of Plant Science (AJPS)

The African Journal of Plant Science (AJPS) is currently accepting manuscripts for publication. AJPS publishes high-quality solicited and unsolicited articles, in English, in all areas of plant science research. All articles published in AJPS will be peer-reviewed.

Our objective is to inform authors of the decision on their manuscript within five weeks of submission. Following acceptance, a paper will normally be published in the next available issue.

One key request of researchers across the world is open access to research publications. The African Journal of Plant Science is fully committed to providing free access to all articles as soon as they are published. We ask you to support this initiative by publishing your papers in this journal.

Please visit our website - http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPS for the Instruction for authors and other details. Prospective authors should send their manuscript(s) to ajps.acadjourn@gmail.com, ajps@academicjournals.org.

AJPS is also seeking for qualified reviewers as members of its editorialboard. Please contact me if you are interested in serving as a reviewer.

Best regards,

Prof. Diaga Diouf, Acting Editor
African Journal of Plant Science
E-mail: ajps.acadjourn@gmail.com
E-mail: ajps@academicjournals.org
http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPS

International Organization Launched to Address Problems in Cultivated Plant Taxonomy

Plants have been in cultivation for millennia, but it is becoming evermore difficult to maintain clarity and understanding in the science of naming cultivated plants. This has been exacerbated in recent decades by the proliferation of not only cultivars, but trade designations and other devices used to market them. To provide necessary leadership in the field of taxonomy and nomenclature of cultivated plants, a new organization was launched during the 5th International Symposium on the Taxonomy of Cultivated Plants in Wageningen, The Netherlands on October 18, 2007: the International Association for Cultivated Plant Taxonomy (IACPT).

Although often underestimated, there is significant value of knowing a plant's precise name and understanding its origin, development, description, classification and performance potential. Stability and harmonization in cultivated plant names can be achieved only with clear and widely accessible information. The IACPT seeks to make information sharing the core of its mission, and will encourage international cooperation among individuals and institutions interested in this field and related disciplines.

To achieve its goals, the association will sponsor symposia, publish a journal dedicated to cultivated plant taxonomy, develop databases and on-line resources for improving stability in the nomenclature of cultivated plants and become a vehicle for discussion and provide advice on the implementation of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP).

Members include taxonomists, international cultivar registration authorities, representatives of plant breeders rights authorities, industry scientists and specialists, public garden professionals and many others. Memberships are now being solicited, and as of April, 2008, there are 70 members from 13 different countries. Five individuals represent the US and Canada on the IACPT council: John Wiersema, Michael Dosmann (Vice-president for the Americas) and Dennis Collins (Secretary) for the US; Freek Vrugtman and Bernard Baum for Canada. Additional information on joining can be found at: www.iacpt.net. Although there is yet no policy for institutional memberships, inquiries on the subject are welcome and some mechanism will address this in the future.

For more information, contact Dennis Collins at 617-607-1961 or e-mail at dcollins@mountauburn.org.

Revealing Double Lecture Explores the Shroud of Turin - Missouri Botanical Garden

WHAT: Double lecture, “Botany of the Shroud of Turin,” by Dr. Avinoam Danin, and “The Shroud of Turin: The Holographic Experience,” by Dr. Petrus Soons

WHEN: Monday, Aug. 18 at 5:30 p.m.

WHERE: Shoenberg Theater, Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd. in south St. Louis

COST: Free

INFO: General Garden info, www.mobot.org or (314) 577-9400

The Shroud of Turin, believed to be the traditional burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, has been on public display only a handful of times in the past century, yet it is one of the most studied and researched artifacts in the world. Dr. Avinoam Danin, Emeritus Professor of Botany at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has spent decades examining images of plant remains he discovered on the shroud; collectively, these indicate a geographic origin of the burial in the vicinity of Jerusalem during the months of March or April. Recently, he located about 300 additional flowers and parts of plants on the cloth, providing additional evidence about its provenance. Dr. Petrus Soons, retired M.D., has used digitized photos of the linen cloth to create another device for study: three-dimensional holograms. Discover what their research has revealed about the botany of the shroud during a double lecture on Monday, Aug. 18 at 5:30 p.m. at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The event is free.

The “Botany of the Shroud of Turin” will be presented by Dr. Avinoam Danin, who is co-author of the Flora of the Shroud of Turin. Of the plant images he originally uncovered on the shroud, the presence of three plant species were used as geographic indicators to show the origin of the garment as the Holy land between Jerusalem and Hebron. Eight of the species were used by Danin to determine that the placing of these plants on the deceased person’s body took place in the months of March or April.

Using photographs of the shroud taken by Vernon Miller in 1978, Danin recently discovered over 300 additional flowers and plant parts on the head area of the cloth. The size and morphology of the flowering heads closely resemble those of Matricaria and Anthemis, two genera in the sunflower family. The stalks and stems of the flowers have been removed, and the flowers appear in an orderly arrangement, suggesting their intentional placement on the body that was covered by the garment. More recent research has uncovered what appear to be four flowering heads from the Carduus genus of thistles, and three spines from the deciduous shrub Rhamnus lycioides; possible evidence of the Biblical “crown of thorns.”

“The Shroud of Turin: The Holographic Experience” will be presented by Dr. Petrus Soons, whose work involves the digitization of shroud photographs taken in 1931. Soons enhanced the original photos to improve details, and then translated the enhanced grayscale images into depth data. The result was a sequence of nearly 625 images for each photo, which computer expert Bernardo Galmarini combined using a Holoprinter to produce three-dimensional (3-D) holographic images of the shroud. This unprecedented new view of the artifact yielded the discovery of previously unseen details, confirmation of many previous findings, and a few surprises.

“The production of the first 3-D photographs greatly benefited both Dr. Soons’ and my ongoing study of the shroud,” said Danin.

“These studies represent an impressive case of the application of botanical information to the interpretation of a venerated historical object,” said Garden President Dr. Peter Raven. “They offer telling information about where and when it was used.”

The double lecture will be held in the Shoenberg Theater, lower level of the visitors’ center at the Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd. Admission to the event is free and open to the public. For general information, visit www.mobot.org or call the recorded line at (314) 577-9400.

Since 1983, the Vatican has owned the Shroud of Turin, which is kept in Turin’s Roman Catholic cathedral in Italy. Pope Benedict XVI recently announced that the shroud will go on public display in 2010.

Dr. Brent Elliott Receives Greensfelder Medal from the Missouri Botanical Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden has awarded Dr. Brent Elliott, librarian and archivist at the Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library in London, with the 2008 Greensfelder Medal. Dr. Elliott was honored at the dedication of the Doris Waters Harris Lichtenstein Victorian District at the Garden on June 13.

Dr. Elliott is a renowned authority on Victorian gardens who collaborated on the landscape design and interpretation of the new Victorian District. The unified and enhanced area comprises the historic southeast corner of the Garden and includes the Kresko Family Victorian Garden and Tower Grove House, country home of Garden founder Henry Shaw.

Books Reviewed

  Life in the Soil: A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners.
  Flora of China Illustrations. Volume 22, Poaceae.
  Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells: Analysis of Genes, Chromosomes, and Genomes.
  Handbook of Plant Science, Volumes 1 and 2.
  The Origins of Genome Architecture.

Life in the Soil: A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners. James B. Nardi. University of Chicago Press. 293 pp. ISBN 13:978-0-226-56852-2.

Now here is a book I’ve been waiting for. Like most BSA members, I’ve got shelves full of books about plants – how they are related, how to identify them, which ones I can eat, which ones I could use for what ails me. Yet I’ve got far fewer references on the substrate upon which most of those plants are growing. Sure, there’s my old, worn copy of The Nature and Structure of Soils and there’s Miller and Donahue’s Soils in our Environment, the textbook used for my undergrad soils course. But where is that one book that really, finally, illuminates the dark and dynamic habitat lying under our feet and the biota it supports? As far as I can tell, it didn’t exist until now.

Let me just come clean (or soiled, perhaps) right off the bat: I love this book. As I read it, I got that old feeling that used to come over me when I was a kid engrossed in a Golden Guide – like I was being let in on some big secret in nature and all I needed to decode the mystery was the book in my hand. That’s what Life in the Soil is like, and in no small part this is due to James Nardi’s wonderful illustrations. These are scattered throughout the book and provide detailed views of critters we never see so clearly, for reasons of scale or because they lead hidden subterranean lives. Whether the rendering is a comparison of several types of actinomycetes, a cut-away view of a pocket gopher’s burrow, or a step-by-step breakdown of rotifer locomotion, Nardi’s artwork is a show-stealing complement to the written text.

This is not to say that the text is lacking. Rather, it is written in a style that is indicative of an author who is obviously an effective teacher. Complex concepts are tackled with ease, and much of the text reads more like a good story than a textbook. This is no small accomplishment because this book is packed with a volume of information that could easily be presented in a less accessible and far less colorful manner. I imagine that arriving at this goal took much hard work and editing, and it appears to have been a worthwhile labor.

The book is divided into three main sections. Part One, titled “The Marriage of the Mineral World and the Organic World”, is where most of the plant-related information is encountered. The short, general treatments of roots and their nitrogen-fixing symbionts (2 pages), mycorrhizal associations (4 pages), and the direct interactions between roots and soils (7 pages) have the potential to leave botanists somewhat dissatisfied (I was, at first). Plants do, however, get their due in the remainder of Part One as Nardi highlights their importance as the foundation of all that is living in our soils. This includes an enlightening journey in which he traces an abscised oak leaf from the moment it lands on the ground to the time it becomes any number of tiny fragments in a bit of humus.

Having already laid out the five factors that contribute to the making of soils: climate, topography, parent material, time, and living organisms; Nardi dedicates what is by far the largest section of his book to the last factor, the soil biota. In Part Two, “Members of the Soil Community,” the author provides treatments of 60 different taxonomic groups. Eight of these are included in the “Microbes” section: 1) Eubacteria and Archaebacteria; 2) Actinomycetes; 3) Algae; 4) Fungi; 5) Chytrids, Hypochytrids, Oomycetes; 6) Lichens; 7) Slime Molds; and 8) Protozoa. The systematists among us may cringe at a few of these partitions, but a detailed reading of the treatments of these groups shows that Nardi is fully aware of where things really belong. These categories are used by convenience and, most importantly, because they make sense to the audience for which the book is largely written: amateur naturalists and gardeners with a biological acumen. I took comfort in the information boxes inserted at the beginning of each treatment in which the taxonomy and diversity of the group is summarized. As an example, the Algae (including cyanobacteria) inhabiting soils are described as members of seven listed groups from three kingdoms. [Nardi chose to use a three-domain system in which the Eukaryotes are divided into five kingdoms: Protozoa, Chromista, Fungus, Animal, and Plant.]

The bulk of Part Two (around 170 pages) is dedicated to invertebrate and vertebrate animals, from flatworms to kangaroo rats. It’s all fascinating reading, and the text in this section is chock full of entertaining and informative narratives describing the myriad ways that animals create, use, and maintain soils. You might be familiar with the importance of earthworms, or dung beetles (great stuff here on them), or burrowing mammals (woodchucks excavate as much as 700 pounds of subsoil and associated material for a single burrow!), but Life in the Soil casts an equal opportunity spotlight that shines on many others. To wit: Woodlice, already of considerable interest as landlubbing crustaceans, are among the first things to begin breaking down leaves into humus. Mites, some predatory and others scavengers, are present at densities of up to 100,000 per square meter of soil. Moth fly larvae (Family Psychodidae) are not only colored like the soils in their neighborhood but they camouflage themselves further by attaching chunks of soil along their backs.

The third and final part of the book, “Working in Partnership with Creatures of the Soil,” is a short (11 pages) foray into the things we can all do as soil stewards. The prevention of erosion and salinization, wise use of fertilizers, avoidance of biological invasions, and the use of composting “as an antidote to soil abuse” are all given attention here. This is followed by three appendices: a guide to observing life in the soil (including tips for locating and collecting soil organisms), a glossary, and three pages of suggested additional readings.

This review now done, one would expect that I would put my copy of the book on my shelves and leave it there for future reference - but I am actually inclined to just start reading it again. Life in the Soil is what descriptive natural history books should all be, but too few actually are. It is appropriately detailed and comprehensive, but it is also easy and fun to read. The enthusiasm of the author and his own sense of wonder come through loud and clear in both his words and his artwork. There is more happening beneath us than most folks could ever imagine, but Nardi has made it a heck of a lot easier to do so.

-Christopher T. Martine, Department of Biological Sciences, SUNY Plattsburgh

Flora of China Illustrations. Volume 22, Poaceae. Wu Z. Y., P. H. Raven & D. Y. Hong, eds. 2007. ISBN 978-1-930723-61-0 (cloth, US$140.00) xii + 937 pp. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis.

This publication is the 12th in a series of 24 volumes of illustrations that parallel the text volumes of the Flora of China (FOC). It accompanies FOC Volume 22, which was published in 2006 and treated 226 genera with 1,795 species in the Poaceae. This volume of illustrations includes 904 plates representing 1,271 species, 24 subspecies, and 50 varieties in 226 genera of Poaceae. The illustrations are arranged according to the sequence of tribes, genera, and species in FOC Volume 22. Latin names of recognized taxa are followed by their Chinese names with the pinyin transliterations. Scale bars are given for about half of the plates.

The family Poaceae was covered in five volumes of the Flora Republicae Popularis Sinicae (FRPS), published between 1987 and 2002. Most of the beautiful drawings that were published in FRPS (particularly Bambuseae) are now available in the volume under review. However, for taxa not or insufficiently illustrated in FRPS, this volume also includes many original drawings and illustrations from other published sources (particularly Poeae). The total number of illustrations in FRPS was somewhat larger, but this is partly due to smaller number of currently recognized species in some genera. For example, 231 species in the genus Poa were recognized in FRPS and 127 of them were illustrated. There are only 81 recognized species in this genus in FOC and 44 of them (plus 18 subspecies) are illustrated. Illustrations are, in general, of very high quality, clearly showing inflorescences, spikelets, florets, glumes, etc. Cross sections of leaf blades are included in almost all illustrations of 45 Festuca species. Personally, I would like to see more vegetative characters (ligules) in some of the illustrations.

The Flora of China is a monumental international achievement. The editors, all contributing authors, and artists should be congratulated for this milestone in plant systematics!

-Marcel Rejmánek, Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616.

Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells: Analysis of Genes, Chromosomes, and Genomes. Doležel, Jaroslav, Johann Greilhuber, and Jan Suda (eds). 2007. ISBN 978-3-527-31487-4 (Cloth US$190.00) 454pp. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

In the era genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics it is difficult to keep up to date with all these new technologies. Older methods are therefore often overlooked, although they may actually find new applications. The book by Dolezel and co-editors on flow cytometry is a wake-up call. In 18 chapters the most prominent authors in the field demonstrate the many possibilities that this technique, originally designed for biomedical purposes, offers for many questions in all kinds of botanical studies. Although as pointed out by Loureiro & al. (chapter 18) more than 80% of the current applications of flow cytometry are concerned with ploidy level and genome size estimation, it is used in as different fields as ecology, systematics, physiology and genetics. Flow cytometry has many advantages as repeatedly stressed throughout the book, such as ease of sample preparation, rapidity of the analysis, no requirement for dividing cells and low cost once the flow cytometer has been set up. But the book is not a one-sided promotion of flow cytometry. Technical problems such as those caused by secondary compounds are again and again considered for the various applications discussed. Consequently, the book is not so much a book discussing results from studies using flow cytometry but rather a guide to best laboratory practice. Its main purpose, however, seems to be highlighting the possibilities of the method. What Pfündel & Meister (chapter 11, p. 252) wrote is probably true for most of these chapters: “We believe that the rare use of FCM [flow cytometry] in chloroplast research results from a lack of awareness of its possibilities rather than from any limitations of the method”.

The book starts with an extensive history of the technique by Shapiro, leading on to an in-depth description of the technique by Robinson & Grégori, which is probably over the head of most plant biologists. Although these may be the less frequently visited chapters of the book, they definitely round up the book. After these introductory chapters, Dolezel, Greilhuber & Suda introduce the diverse applications, from genome size measurement to flow sorting and phytosanitary screening and onto the quantification of secondary metabolites. Additionally, they introduce the plant-specific problems with the technique that are then discussed in more detail in the specific chapters. The chapter, thus, forms the central cornerstone of the book. Whenever a plant biologist thinks he doesn’t need flow cytometry, he should read this chapter. Chapter 4 by Greilhuber & al. gives an introduction to the complex terminology of genome size studies and a detailed analysis of methodological problems in genome size estimation. The part on the terminology is a must-read for anybody publishing on genome size and ploidy variation. The methodological part of the chapter represents a highly useful compilation of these small observations and recommendations that are normally not found in publications other than in well-hidden side notes and so the chapter will likely spare users from desperate emails on the various email listservers.
The variation of ploidy levels discussed in chapter 5 (Suda & al.) may be the most frequently used application of flow cytometry, because it allows a rapid survey of populations for its ploidy level. For groups in which chromosome numbers are known this presents an easy way of detecting the distribution limits of cytotypes and rapidly increases our knowledge on ploidy level variation within populations, occurrence of intermediate cytotypes such as triploids and so on. Chapter 6 by Matzk extends the question of ploidy level variation to the intraindividual level and the question of reproductive modes such as detection of unreduced gametes and the determination of endosperm ploidy.

Leitch & Bennett (chapter 7) review what is known about genome size variation and its implications. Of course, a single chapter can only discuss correlations of genome size with some biological features but not all that have been suggested. Nevertheless, the chapter provides an insightful overview over the topic to those not as familiar with the topic. A more specialized topic is discussed by Meister & Barow (chapter 8). Comparing the measurements of the same material once with a base-specific dye and once with an unspecific dye allows estimation of GC/AT-content in different genomes. Considerable differences between GC/AT-contents exist in investigated species but these do not seem to have a taxonomic significance and currently no convincing biological relevance is known. After this the more unusual applications of flow cytometry are presented, although the order is not entirely clear to me. It starts with the screen for plant pathogenic microorganisms discussed by Bergervoet & al. (chapter 9), probably the most applied application rather than one used in basic research. Galbraith (chapter 10) then discusses the technical approach to measure protoplast size, senescence, cell death, protein content and physiological parameters using flow cytometry. These topics are so diverse that here most often only the topics are briefly touched upon and the reader is then referred to the original literature. The analysis of chloroplasts introduced by Pfündel & Meister (chapter 11) seems to be in its infancy. The chapter is mostly preoccupied with discussing methodological problems and only mentioning one issue, in which flow cytometry has been used successfully, the detection of C4-photosynthesis.

Whereas most of the studies using flow cytometry worked with vascular plants, the potential applications in the study of non-vascular plants are even more diverse as outlined in the next two chapters. While Voglmayer in chapter 12 focuses on the technical problems of genome size estimation in bryophytes and algae and reviews the current state of knowledge, chapter 13 by Dubelaar discusses the application of flow cytometry in the study of phytoplankton. Here, flow cytometers have been developed furthest and sometimes look rather like a submarine. The lack of morphological characters to distinguish plankton species has been overcome by flow cytometry when it was shown that different types of plankton can be distinguished by their autofluorescent characteristics (i.e. that of their chlorophyll). The parallel species identification and number estimation allows detailed ecosystem monitoring and changes over short times and distances. Further advancements in these kinds of analyses are to be expected by staining plankton with species-specific oligonucleotides. This could, for example, allow in-situ detection of toxic algae species.

From ecology, the theme then shifts in the next four chapters back to plant genetic topics. Pfosser & al. review the analysis of cell cycles, not only using flow cytometry. As the authors state that the use of flow cytometry in cell cycle analysis is rather limited, I wonder whether this excellent chapter may not be well hidden in this book from researchers interested in cell cycles. The authors give an extensive list of drugs affecting the cell cycle and systems for its study as well as a guide on how to synchronize cell lines. In contrast, the review of endopolyploidy by Barow & Jovtchev (chapter 15) depends to a large extent on flow cytometry and, therefore, a review of its estimation and factors modifying endopolyploidy was to be expected. Dolezel & al. (chapter 16) then introduce into the topic of flow sorting mitotic metaphase chromosomes. It is certainly one of the most demanding applications of flow cytometry and the extensive difficulties are discussed in much detail. It finds its use in karyotyping, for example in agriculture, and assigning sequences to specific chromosomes when combined with FISH, providing a resolution of as little as 70kb. The authors finish by outlining a strategy to generate chromosome-specific markers and BAC-libraries. A technically even more demanding application of flow cytometry is its use in gene expression analysis (chapter 17). Galbraith discusses extensively microarrays and only briefly mentions how flow sorting protoplasts could help locating the expression of specific genes. Overall, however, I had the impression that in this topic flow cytometry plays and will play only a minor role. (Alternatively, Galbraith did not convince me of its importance.) Finally, Loureiro & al. present the FLOWer database (chapter 18; http://flower.web.ua.pt), a comprehensive database with bibliographic information on all articles dealing with flow cytometry in plants. This database is surely a remarkable resource for anyone interested in flow cytometry for various reasons, for example when looking for technical help. It allows searching and sorting of the literature according to buffer, standards, fluorochromes used in the study, the purpose of the study, the journal in which the study was published and the country in which the study was conducted.

Overall, the book is certainly a must-have for any plant biology library and I recommend reading the chapters closest to your interest. I am sure, several ideas on how to use flow cytometry in your own research will come to your mind. However, the book also gives ample warnings that things may not be as easy as they may appear in the beginning. Especially, the more demanding applications will certainly continue to be conducted only in a handful of laboratories world-wide.

-Dr. Dirk Albach, Institut für Spezielle Botanik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Bentzelweg 9b
55099 Mainz. Germany.

Handbook of Plant Science, Volume 1. (Functional Plant Anatomy, Plant Tissues and Cells, Plant Cell Biology, Plant Growth and Development, Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology) Handbook of Plant Science, Volume 2 (Evolution, Plant Primary Metabolism, Plant Secondary Metabolism, Photosynthesis, Plants and their Environment, Plants and Other Organisms) Roberts, Keith (ed.). 2007. ISBN 978-0-470-05723-0 (Cloth US$590) 1599 pp. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England.

This two volume compendium is comprised of over 250 articles extracted from a larger opus, the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (ELS), now published by Wiley, but first on-line in 2001. The ELS has about 4,000 articles, and is “updated regularly”. Thus, the present volume ought to be a snapshot of what was available in a certain range of disciplines on a certain date, sometime in 2007, if one judges by citations in the newest articles.

The editor of this volume is a well known scientist, now emeritus of the John Innes Center in the U.K. There are about 400 contributors, each focusing on their own specialty, with articles varying from 2 - 10 pages in length, averaging about 5 pages of text. Some have no specific citations, only a list of further readings, while others are extensively annotated with more than 20 specific references, and sometimes more general “further readings”. This is, in part, a deliberate matter of style, with some articles that provide broad overviews to major topic areas, such as evolution of flowering plants, or plant bioenergetics, and others examining more specialized topic like the shikimic acid pathway of amino acid synthesis or fitness costs of plant disease resistance.

Articles with few specific references, and a limited number of “further readings” are what one would expect of traditional encyclopedia entries. Those with many citations are more like mini-reviews that are commonly published by cutting edge research journals and would be suited only for advanced students and specialists. There are in total 48 pages of color plates tipped into the centers of the two volumes. These repeat illustrations that appear in black and white in the articles, which are well written and produced to a high standard. The exposition is usually clear, although in some subject areas the use of many acronyms is an impediment to easy understanding. No doubt a few errors have crept in but I didn’t pick up any big ones. The Handbook, taken as a whole, is probably best viewed as a supplement to traditional textbooks, or for post-graduates to broaden their knowledge outside their own specialty.

There is unavoidably some overlap between individual chapters when a plant is dissected into topical areas of functional anatomy, tissues and cells, cell biology, growth and development, molecular genetics and biotechnology, evolution, primary metabolism, secondary metabolism, photosynthesis, plants and their environment, plants and other organisms. Any such overlap of content is probably essential for articles to make a coherent read in themselves. Most topic areas have 20-30 articles and something over 100 pages allocated, with evolution the shortest section having only 7 articles and a total of 50 pages. Articles are cross-referenced to a limited extent, so that it is possible to follow some topics from one article to another.

The 50 page subject index contains over 1700 entries, fairly well insuring that there are several entries for each article. For instance, parenchyma has 22 subtopics, with 6 of these in articles other than the primary one. On the other hand, “organ primordia”, and its subtopic patterning, has no citations outside the primary article. Yet, an entry for “radial patterning” turns up this same article and another, while hand searching through articles on the meristem turns up still more instances. I would expect that a good search engine going through this same encyclopedia would identify many more overlaps. Such on-line search capability would make this a much more useful collection.

Biochemistry and molecular biology of plants one way and another receive a large emphasis here. This is an area growing so rapidly with application of bioinformatics, that one cannot hope to keep up with it. This book is no exception to that problem. Also, it should be noted that Wiley sells a Handbook of Plant Biotechnology, for a price approaching $1000. So they are unlikely to have put much of their new material into this volume. For instance, just one chapter addresses micro-arrays in a substantial way, and bioinformatics is nowhere in the index. While a description of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is quite up to date, the article on potential impacts of GMOs is unfortunately an extremely biased, out of date (~1998) view from a strictly European perspective.

The original concept of an online encyclopedia was developed more than a decade ago, and had a long gestation. Looking at the references within each of the articles once can see that the most recent citation for some articles is as long ago as 1994, which means that any progress since that time, may well have gone unnoticed. Of course in some areas there may not be such rapid progress that citing the latest publications is essential, but authors typically tend to pull in a few citations to very recent works, just to make their article look up-to-date. So we may conclude that a fraction of the work discussed here is at least a decade old. For close to 60 % of the articles, the most recent citation is from 2001 when the encyclopedia went on-line. For about 1/4, the most recent citation is in 2005-2007. The years in between are sparsely represented.

The pattern of citation indicates that what we have is in fact two books merged. First came an encyclopedia that went online around 2001. Then there is the product of an updating process, like the yearbooks produced to supplement a classical encyclopedia. Some of these were written relatively recently. Genome sequencing projects are covered briefly through 2006 but the discussion of transgenic plants is about a decade older. Interfering RNA is discussed in an up to date way through 2006 in an article on systemic signaling rather than in the article on gene silencing. The latter, initially written about 2001, has a number of references through 2005 appended as “further reading” with no mention of their relative significance. That is a bit of a dodge that really doesn’t work except for the most sophisticated reader.

Why should I belabor this point? Because I believe that you should know what you are buying. Pulling an article at random, I came upon a review by Daniels and Chrispeels, on aquaporins. It is a well writen, clear exposition, but the most recent citation is from 1998. Since that time our understanding of this specialty has exploded. Those authors had only very vague cryoelectron microscopy images to work with. Now the same technique has been used with a plant aquaporin to gain a better than 4 A resolution (2005) and for a bovine aquaporin a 2.2 A resolution X-ray structure is available since 2004. Recent textbooks (2007) show this structure, complete with mechanistic details. You need only do a quick search of the internet to learn all this.

So, for whom is this book likely to prove useful? Regretfully, I would say, only for those with lots of money and little internet access. One could purchase the past decade of Annual Reviews of Plant Biology with over 200 reviews, current at the date of their publication, for about the same price as the present volumes. Or for teaching, one might buy a couple of good textbooks in botany and plant biochemistry and then use the internet to supplement them more effectively for less money.

True, the example I happened to draw on might be an extreme case, but it might not. It does reflect the difficulty with the traditional encyclopedia model, even when translated to the online world. Few of us like to write revisions of articles, or course notes. We’d rather go on to something new, or use the old ones until they turn yellow and crumble. Keeping an encyclopedia, or text book, current, is a herculean task. Getting authors to revise their reviews is a sisyphian task.

The ELS, with 4000 articles, would have to add 400 new ones per year to have a revision time of a decade. The apparent pace is slower than that, with 300 added during 2007. Searching the on-line version indicates that 55 articles were added to the area designated Plant Science, during 2007. They appear to be included here as part of the 1/4 with recent citation patterns..

A more effective model for an on-line encyclopedia is to discount the access price of older editions, and to update them frequently. This actually has been done for a source that I happen to use in teaching about psychopharmacology. The publishers of that series are in the “fifth generation”, and the fourth, now over a decade old, is available free, at least where I live. Incidentally it is published by Wiley, for a society.

A much better buy than the present volumes for most libraries would be a subscription to the online version of Handbook of Plant Sciences at some reasonable rate of say $100/yr. That works out to $1000/ decade, higher than the purchase price of this book. But it would assure that new information could be added to articles as needed, keeping them up to date. Or new authors could be persuaded to write new chapters. Unfortunately, the price from Wiley for the entire ELS is close to $3000/yr for an institution the size of mine. For the Handbook, which is 1/15 of the whole ELS it would likely be over $300/yr, and it is not offered yet on a subscription basis. (The annual subscription price of the Handbook of Plant Biotechnology having about 70 articles and 1500 pages is over $500, indicating that a purchase price for the paper bound version is a “bargain” at under $1000, for it is surely not being revised more often than once in three years.) The present subscription model is clearly not a workable one, or a good buy, for most institutions. But it is hard to see that the present volumes justify their price.

-Lawrence Davis, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS

The Origins of Genome Architecture. Lynch, Michael. 2007. ISBN 978-0-87893-484-3 (cloth US$59.95) 494 pp. Sinauer Associates, Inc. P.O. Box 407, Sunderland MA 01375-0407.

This is a truly remarkable book, which will forever change your view of evolutionary biology. Anyone with even tangential interest in evolution needs to read the preface, epilogue, and especially the fourth chapter on population size. Lynch takes a detailed knowledge of molecular genetics and genomics, combined with a refined fluency in population genetics, to create sound sweeping descriptions and predictions about evolution.

Lynch shows how modern genomic data imply that large eukaryotes - e.g. plants and animals - are largely immune from selection. Drift and mutation are much more salient drivers of their evolution, virtually mocking adaptationist explanations. Empirically, he shows how small effective population size also results in reduced recombination, increased linkage disequilibrium, greater genetic hitchhiking, and increased mutation rates. By contrast, with small eukaryotes with few cell types, selection reigns supreme. This does create tension. Rich Lenski pioneered experimental evolution in prokaryotes, a field that others have expanded to protists and fungi, showing that selection drives evolution of large populations. For better or worse, Lynch shows that such results cannot be extrapolated to larger, more complex eukaryotes. He thereby resurrects Sewall Wright¹s early vision that drift matters. Botanists need to heed his words and stop always looking for adaptationist explanations. For example, why are angiosperm radiations invariably thought to be adaptive? Evolutionary botanists need to look elsewhere for answers, especially to the roles of gene duplications, where polyploidy is the most dramatic case, in driving drift, mutation, linkage, epistasis and pleiotropy.

This book is not aimed at botanists. In fact, Lynch knowledgeably covers all life and even life¹s progenitors. The chapter on gene duplications, which are prevalent in plants, will probably be most useful to plant scientists, especially his discussions of neo- and sub-functionalization, which is greatly strengthened by Keith Adams¹ beautiful work on reciprocal epigenetic silencing of homeologous genes in cotton.

Alex Haley¹s Autobiography of Malcolm X was ironically not an autobiography. Charles Darwin¹s Origin of Species was ironically not about the origin of species. Lynch follows in this grand tradition. His book is not is much about the origins of genome architecture, but rather about ramifications of that architecture to evolutionary trajectories.

The only faults that I could find with this book are extremely minor. More extensive coverage of epigenetic effects would have been nice. His discussion of centromeres omitted mention of karyotypic fission and perpetuated the inaccurate suggestion that only one of four products of meiosis survives in most female organs (cf Ed Klekowski¹s wonderful diagrams of angiosperm megagametophytes, which show more than just the textbook Polygonum type). While Lynch¹s index is moderately good, a more comprehensive index would be a great addition to any revision.

This is not a book for the meek. The genetic and population genetic details, while accessible, are still extraordinarily rich in detail. Many of the arguments are cumulative throughout the volume. But it is worth the effort wading through these details, which, while important in their own right, add up to an expected synthesis that selection is not the primary driver of plant (or animal) evolution. Casting the hand-waving aside, Lynch shows that it is only by looking at the details of genome architecture and associated population genetics that we can really see how important non-adaptive evolutionary explanations can be. While most botanists abhor mathematics, it is worth trying to understand the nicely presented and simplified mathematics herein. Read Lynch¹s book, have your students read it, and let¹s revise our views of evolution.

-Root Gorelick, Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6 Canada

Books Received for Review

If you would like to review a book or books for PSB, contact the Editor, stating the book of interest and the date by which it would be reviewed (15 January, 15 April, 15 July or 15 October). E-mail psb@botany.org, call, or write as soon as you notice the book of interest in this list because they go quickly! - Editor