to review, and I was not disappointed. Tryon & Moran have put together an exquisite book on the ferns and fern-allies of New England that should be on the shelf of every botanist, ecologist, horticulturalist, and field naturalist. This book should be admired not only for its scholarly treatment of the plants by two acknowledged experts in the field, but also for the astonishingly beautiful photographs of each species, most taken over 50 years ago.
The Ferns and Allied Plants of New England describes the ninety-two native species and several additional varieties of ferns and fern-allies (Equisetaceae, Lycopodiaceae, Selaginellaceae, and Isoëtaceae) that occur in the six-state New England region of the United States (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). Following a brief introduction, which includes references to ferns in literary works, a workable key to all the genera in the book is provided. Nomenclature follows the recent Flora of North America, North of Mexico (vol. 2, Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms). Each genus is treated separately, following standard botanical ordering (unlike the standard field guide for the region, Boughton Cobb’s A Field Guide to the Ferns and Their Related Families, Houghton-Mifflin, 1956). For genera with more than one species in the region, a key to the species precedes the species descriptions. Presentation of each species’ description is standardized, and includes: distinguishing characteristics; a description of the habitat in which it can be found; its range in New England; its global range; chromosome number; spore structure; and additional remarks to aid in identification and distinction; discussion of its nomenclatural derivation; and interesting accounts from history and lore. County-level dot maps illustrate the New England range; the data for creating these maps are based on collections in the herbarium of the New England Botanical Club, with additions from other regional herbaria and other published (and unpublished) works. Because the ranges of many ferns and fern-allies of New England extend outside of the region, their global ranges are plotted as well.
Each species is illustrated with a photograph of the plant in its natural habitat. All but two of the ferns were photographed between 1934 and 1942 by the amateur naturalist and photographer, Robert L. Coffin, of Amherst, Massachusetts. These photographs, mostly from the Amherst area, were taken with a large-format (9 x 12 cm negatives) camera, and so the details are not obscured by the minimal enlargement needed for printing. The fine level of preservation of these photographs is a tribute to Coffin’s careful work; they were rediscovered in Coffin’s son’s home by Walter Hodge (of the University of Massachusetts) and the authors. Hodge himself took most of the photographs of the fern- allies, while other photographs were provided by David Barrington (University of Vermont), W. Carl Taylor (Milwaukee Public Museum), and the late William Drury (College of the Atlantic).
The book closes with several appendices of additional value. First is a set of scanning electron micrographs of the spores of all the species of ferns and fern-allies described in the text. Like the plant photographs, these SEM images are brilliantly printed. Second is a description of the geology and climate of New England that places the regionally high species diversity of ferns and fern-allies into the appropriate temporal context. The last appendix is a short section on gardening with ferns, with emphasis on purchasing ferns and spores from reputable nurseries as opposed to illegally collecting them in the field (as many species are rare or endangered). A glossary of technical terms and short, but useful reference list end this book.
There’s no denying the lasting value and utility, and the sheer beauty of The Ferns and Allied Plants of New England. Buy a copy today, buy more for your friends and colleagues, and carry it with you in the field. And call your local Audubon Society preserve or office and make sure they have a ready supply on hand to sell. - Aaron M. Ellison, Department of Biological Sciences, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075
Flora of North America North of Mexico. Volume 3: Magnoliophyta: Magnoliidae and Hamamelidae. Flora of North America Editorial Committee, ed. 1997. ISBN 0-19-511246-6 (cloth US$85.00) 590 pp. Oxford University Press, Inc., 198 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016. FNA volume 3 includes taxonomic keys and treatments of the Magnoliidae and Hamamelidae, including families such as the Magnoliaceae, Lauraceae, Nymphaceae, Ranunculaceae, Ulmaceae, Juglandaceae, Fagaceae, and Betulaceae. It therefore includes the majority of angiosperm forest tree species, as well as treatments of such large genera as the buttercups (Ranunculus) and the larkspurs (Delphinium). All in all it includes 128 treatments of genera and 741 treatments of species. As in all FNA volumes, all treatments of species and subspecies are accompanied by small maps of the distribution on the North American continent North of Mexico. Although it is the stated policy of the FNA editorial committee to illustrate approximately a third of the species, almost exactly half of the species and subspecies treated are illustrated, although many of these illustrations are limited to floral or fruit morphology. The illustrations are detailed and excellent, many are very beautiful. Check out the oak illustrations for examples or the Magnolia - Liriodendron illustration. Many treatments include comments on medicinal or other ethnobotanical uses.
What sets the FNA apart from comparable projects such as the Jepson Manual (Hickman, 1993) or the Flora Europaea is the inclusion of discussions of the taxonomic status of difficult taxa. Authors were asked to explain their decisions and mention other treatments with appropriate references. This is where the real value of the FNA lies. Contrary to popular opinion, taxonomy is in constant flux, and many problems are far from solved. Because floras of the past have not included such information, they have tended to foster the impression in non-taxonomists that the classification and naming of plant species outside of the tropics is a finished task and that taxonomists are no longer needed in universities. Granted, any profession tends to justify its existence when given a chance, but the FNA project may be the first chance for American plant taxonomy to do so in a long while. Because difficulties are openly discussed and contrary opinions cited, FNA volumes are extremely informative and very honest books.
I should like to add one caveat about honesty, though. All maps are lies, and one should not put too much confidence in many of the distribution maps in the FNA, simply because there is not enough information about the distribution of many species to produce very reliable maps. However, having these maps is much better than having no maps at all, and, as I know from personal experience, the necessity to create these maps forces contributors to do their homework and actually work from field- and herbarium-specimens instead of copying information from previous treatments. But far be it from me to imply that members of the editorial committee had such an effect at the backs of their minds!
With so many contributors, disagreements about standards for the recognition of species, subspecies and varieties are unavoidable. For example, one wonders whether the authors of the treatments for the three oak subgenera in any way coordinated the consistency of their taxonomic treatments. The only check on the consistency of treatments in the FNA is peer-review, and reviewers differ in their opinions about standards for delimiting species just as much as contributors do. One may call this anarchy, as G. Ledyard Stebbins did in FNA volume 1, or one may accept this as an unavoidable reflection of genuine disagreements. (But many thanks to Dr. Stebbins for envisioning this mind-boggling leap from taxonomy to anarchy!)
Because the FNA project draws upon the expertise of the entire community of systematic botanists, the flux in taxonomic knowledge is very apparent in these books. Floras of the past, written by one or two authors, who could not possibly be experts in all the groups, tended to be a lot more conservative in their treatments. Updating taxonomy means changing names, and such changes, especially where widespread, threatened, or otherwise important species are involved, are usually very unpopular with ecologists. But that is a small price to pay for the contribution that the FNA project makes to botanical knowledge by inspiring re-evaluation of taxa on a continental scale. New species and new name changes are not published in FNA, but quite a few have been published as byproducts of the FNA project. For example, 13 of the species in volume 3 had been published as new. This invigorating effect on plant taxonomy will hopefully continue for many years, at least until the last of the 30 volumes is published, and very likely beyond that. Last not least, the FNA will certainly play an important role in conservation issues in days to come when more and more "species" will be declared threatened or endangered.
Finally, I should point out that the content of FNA volumes can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.fna.org/, which also has additional information on the FNA project. When I last checked, illustrations to volume 3 were not yet online, but treatments and distribution maps were. The fact that the whole FNA database will be available online of course raises the question whether there is any reason to buy these books. The FNA is certainly not much use in the field, and for keying species most users will prefer a state- or local flora. My recommendation to North-American botanists is to check the FNA out and at least consider the purchase. These are beautiful books with a lot of information and they are not very expensive. If you are at all inclined to buy, start now. Volume 2 and 3 together include up-to-date treatments of the vast majority of North American forest trees and of all the ferns, certainly information worth having. - H. Jochen Schenk, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, California
Literature Cited:
Hickman, J.C., ed. (1993). Taylor, I.E.P. (1993). Flora of North America, a landmark, maybe a renaissance, in floristics: Commentary. Canadian Journal of Botany 71: 1535-1536.
Malesian Seed Plants. Vol. 1: Spot-characters. An aid for identification of families and genera. van Balgooy, M.M.J., 1997. ISBN 90-71236-31-5 (paper Dfl.50.00) 154 pp. Backhuys Publishers, P.O. Box 321, 2300 AH Leiden, the Netherlands. - Malaysia, indeed much of eastern and tropical Asia, enthralls Tertiary paleobotanists. Not only for potentially colorful travel slides, but also because these regions still harbor genera and even families that dominated or characterized Tertiary floras in Europe and North America but have long since died out there. Symplocos (Symplococaceae) and members of the Mastixiaceae (sometimes considered a subfamily of the Cornaceae), to name but two taxa, had fruits in the Miocene that European paleocarpologists are particularly fond of.
It was thus with happy anticipation that I picked up Malesian Seed Plants, not knowing, however, exactly what was in store for me. I discovered a book that appealed to me not as a worker on fossil plants, but to my sensibilities as a botanist, systematist, and morphologist.
This book follows in the scholarly tradition of Dutch botanists in southeastern Asia in that it preserves the knowledge and experience of decades of work with Malesian plants. It is actually the published manifestation of botanical notes on characters that distinguish certain genera and families in the Malesian flora which were initially made by C.G.G.J. van Steenis and continued 20 years thereafter by M.M.J. van Balgooy.
Malesia, incidentally, is a region that not only encompasses the country of Malaysia but also the nation states of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Singapore.
This volume of Malesian Seed Plants is the first book of a three-part series. The first contains lists of spot-characters that will guide a reader with some botanical training to identification to the family or genus level, while the second will present "portraits" (i.e., brief characterizations) of tree families, and the third, "portraits" of non-tree families.
"Spot-characters" are distinctive characteristics that are particularly evident in herbarium material. As listed in the table of contents, these include characters regarding habit, stem or branches, exudate, smell, indument (surface coverings such as trichomes), glands, stipules, petioles or rachis, lamina, inflorescences, flowers, fruits, and seeds.
The book is nicely organized with an easy-to-read and follow format. Each character — let’s take "smell", for example — is divided into categories — in this case "fenugreek" and "foetid". Under fenugreek, we find a list of genera and their familial affiliation that emanate this smell which is typical of a herb known here in Central Europe as "maggi" and is commonly added to commercially prepared soup mixes. Plants with a fetid odor, of course, smell foul. You’d be surprised how many genera are scented like soup (18) and how many stink of rotting flesh (at least 17, including the massive flower of Rafflesia, which all budding botanists find out in their first year of intro).
There is a concise, imaginative, but totally apt description to rely on when the botanical adjective under discussion fails to bring up a mental image. Nigrescence, for instance, is a condition when you find "leaves turning blackish upon drying as in many Rubiaceae, Diospyros etc.", whereas flagelliflory occurs in a "inflorescence long and pendent, usually terminal, e.g. Barringtonia and Parkia".
The book contains good, skillfully executed line drawings illustrating the distinguishing characters, excluding the odoriferous ones, naturally. Good quality paper is used, and the front and back flaps of the soft-bound cover can be folded into the book to mark pages of interest.
As announced on the title page, this book is intended as "an aid for the identification of families and genera," and thus does not present information in the manner of a dichotomizing key or a formal floral treatment. A mere checklist of plants exhibiting certain characters may seem of less utility than a key or flora, but I could imagine a situation in which you are desperate to unmask the identity of a plant of which you have only fragments showing at most one or two distinctive characteristics. (In fact, this is the starting point of many a great paleobotanical investigation.) This book could give you that well-needed but gentle shove in the right direction. - Carole Gee, Institute of Paleontology, University of Bonn, Germany
Flora Malesiana. Series 1, volume 13: Rafflesiaceae, W. Meijer; Boraginaceae, H. Riedl; Daphniphyllaceae, T.-C. Huang; Illiciaceae and Schisandraceae, R.M.K. Saunders; , Loranthaceae and Viscaceae, B.A. Barlow. 1997. ISBN 90-71236-33-1. (Dfl 125 = ca. U.S. $62.50) Rijksherbarium / Hortus Botanicus, Publications Department, P.O. Box 9514, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. It takes as its range Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula to the west, Borneo, all of Indonesia, the Philippines to the north, all of New Guinea and the islands off its northeast coast. Superimposed on an outline map of North America, as used to be done in the earlier volumes of the series, this immense tropical area extends west to east from San Francisco to Trinidad and north to south from James Bay in Canada to Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Superimposed on a map of Europe, the flora area extends west to east from Ireland to Soviet Central Asia, and north to south from Lapland to the Adriatic Sea.
Earlier volumes were published on pulpy paper. The photographs were sometimes grainy, but still useful and helpful. The drawings then and now are the best: diagrammatic and rendered with the greatest care to reveal the diagnostic characters. Notes on possible medicinal values are routinely mentioned.
Today, we have glossy paper and color photographs. But all the best characteristics are retained: lengthy descriptions, full citations of types, careful comments about troublesome species, and the fullest discussion of problems and difficulties. This latest volume includes treatments of palynology, phytochemistry, and anatomy among the various families. A useful feature is citation of the range of a species outside Malesia, and then a more detailed range statement for its distribution within the flora area. Exsiccatae are not cited; the volumes would be unmanageably large if they were. The herbaria each author consulted might at least have been mentioned, but they never are.
In so large a tropical area, there are inevitably many species yet to be named to science. One of the great benefits of this fine work is that, once the monographer has cleared away some of the underbrush, as it were, the recognition of new species is facilitated. As a result, some of the earlier pieces are now quite "out of date," precisely because the work was so good.
One cannot help wondering whether this huge work will ever be finished, in the sense that every family will have got some kind of treatment in print. I suspect not, if one considers the array of large families still to be treated, such as Rubiaceae and Poaceae. Nonetheless, one stands in awe of the industry shown by such an array of contributors over nearly half a century. - Neil A. Harriman, Biology Department, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
