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109
of the complexities of meristem organization and their morphogenetic activity. This serves
to underline how little fundamental understanding exists in this area to the extent that
there is still disagreement concerning mitotic activity and the development of the apical
cell. Apart from Page's chapters on ecology on which brief comment has already been
made, the only other chapter predominantly concerned with the sporophyte is the final
one by Fletcher and Kirkwood on the biology and control of bracken. While this serves
to draw special attention to this uniquely successful species in biological terms, its impact
as a weed on man's agricultural activities and to the considerable volume of experimental
work which has been devoted to its control, it adds little to the full treatment that this
subject received in the Linnean Society's symposium volume The Biology of Bracken
published in 1974. It is only in this chapter and to a lesser extent in Page's on experimental
ecology that some aspects of sporophyte physiology are touched on. This reflects only
the paucity of work in this field.
The volume as a whole, which is the first comprehensive review of its kind, is timely.
In summarizing the progress made in diverse fields and integrating it as far as editorially
possible, it will not only be a valuable aid to advanced students and to all actively engaged
in experimental pteridology and related fields, but should stimulate both established and
aspiring workers to accept the challenge offered by the many remaining problems. Here
spring to mind, inevitably, those concerning the functional significance of structure: the
intricacies of spore exine organization and those of the sperm and egg will no doubt
continue to offer much to the enquiring mind; similarly, on the sporophyte side, the apical
meristem organization. But new areas await attention, particularly in sporophyte
physiology. The functioning of the remarkedly conservative and distinctive vascular
system with its persistent endodermis, the low mineral nutritional preferences of most
ferns as judged from horticultural experience, and their noted resistance to pests and
diseases are all fields not only worthy of attention in their own right, but offering promise
of wider biological and even perhaps applied importance.
Except for the reproduction of figures on which comment has already been made, the
book is well produced with remarkably few typographical errors. It is adequately served
with separate species and subject indexes.
K. L. Alvin
TUTIN, T. G., HEYWOOD, V. H., BURGES, N. A., MOORE, D. B., VALENTINE, D. H.,
WALTERS, S. M. and WEBB, D. A. (Editors). Flora Europaea, Volume 5, Alismataceae
to Orchidaceae (Monocotyledones). 452 + xxxvi pp. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge. 1980. £37.50.
The appearance of Volume 5 of Flora Europaea, the final one of the series, marks the
culmination of nearly quarter of a century of research, planning, writing and editing. The
work, sponsored by the Linnean Society of London, has been guided throughout by an
editorial committee in the U.K. under the continuous chairmanship of Professor
T. G. Tutin, and has been administered by a secretariat headed by Professor V. H.
Heywood. The result is a concise yet complete diagnostic flora of the flowering plants,
conifers and pteridophytes of Europe, covering more than 11 500 species of 1541 genera
of 203 families. In addition to the native flora, naturalized aliens are included, and also
certain cultivated species and commonly planted trees. The sequence and circumscription
of families follows in the main the plan of Melchior in the latest edition of Engler's
'Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien' (Edition 12, 1964). The earlier volumes covered Lycopodiaceae to Platanaceae (Volume 1), Rosaceae to Umbelliferae (Volume 2), Diapensiaceae
to Myoporaceae (Volume 3) and Plantaginaceae to Compositae and Rubiaceae (Volume
4).
110
Book Reviews
The treatment of individual species has been planned to give precision and brevity,
coupled with reasonable uniformity throughout the series. The infraspecific taxonomic
descriptions are limited mainly to subspecies, but the treatment is usually quite adequate
to give a satisfactory conspectus of the known variation in Europe.
A work of this scope represents an achievement of considerable magnitude, the more
so as its production involved a great deal of international co-operation. Some 40 regional
advisers from 24 countries were directly involved in the planning, and more than 100
systematise contributed their specialized knowledge of various groups. An indispensable
factor in carrying the project through has been the co-operation of numerous universities
and other institutions in the U.K. and elsewhere which made facilities available. Aid of
this nature has been vital for the project; but the venture could not have been carried
through without the generous financial support of the U.K. Science Research Council
(up to 1965, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research), amounting in total
to nearly £150000, and aid made available on a more modest scale from other sources,
both in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe.
Does the product, then, justify the effort and cost? Assuredly so. Certainly no plant
systematic library could be considered complete without it; but beyond this the Flora,
as the first based upon modern taxonomy to have claims of comprehensiveness for the
continent as a whole, is likely to have a far wider function than serving the needs of
academic botanists. Non-systematists - ecologists, conservationists, agronomists, foresters, geographers and those concerned with land use and amenity planning - are
increasingly feeling the need for accurate taxonomic information about the plants that
form so large a part of our natural environment; and this the Flora offers in reasonably
concise and accessible form. The keys for the most part should prove workable for the
non-specialist, and the species descriptions should present no problems for anyone with
a smattering of botanical understanding. The individual species accounts have the further
merit of providing references to the recent literature and much useful information on
geographical distribution, habitat preferences and chromosome numbers.
The original planning of the Flora set a logical framework aimed at giving consistency
and uniformity of treatment throughout, and this has been notably successful. One of
the virtues of the design of the work is the way that each volume can be used
independently of the others, a result achieved by the device of printing certain key pages
in each. Thus each volume includes an inset on distinctively coloured paper giving a short
general glossary, mainly of technical terms derived from the Latin; a brief English-Latin
vocabulary (not the least important function of which is to enable those whose first
language is not English to interpret the more obscure English terms); a page covering
abbreviations, signs and other usages in the general text; and an excellent set of maps
indicating the boundaries adopted for the purposes of the Flora, including those of the
so-called distributional 'territories' and the rather more vague districts such as 'SW
Europe' occasionally referred to in the species accounts. These inclusions - themselves
a tribute to the thoughtful planning of the Editorial Committee - should certainly remove
many ambiguities — again, more especially for the general user. Other valuable Appendices
in each volume include a key to the abbreviations for the authorities cited giving full
names, including initials and dates (a useful bonus - for this information is often difficult
to find!), and keys to the textual abbreviations of books, periodicals and anonymous
works. The various European floras are listed in two categories,' Basic', those covering
extensive regions of the continent, and 'Standard', those of a more local character; the
reader is thus guided to more detailed treatments should he have the need. The index
to each volume has been compiled not only for the usual purposes of an index, but also
to cite and explain names relegated to synonymy in the text and standard floras. The
practice is commendable in freeing the text of the clutter of synonyms - daunting enough
even for the systematist with a flora so frequently worked over as that of Europe.
Book Reviews
111
The present volume, Volume 5, includes in a distinctively coloured inset a key to all
of the families and genera treated in the earlier volumes, also a compendious key to the
families. As it happens, thisfinalvolume, perhaps even more than its predecessors, forms
a text in its own right, being wholly devoted to the Monocotyledons. The treatments
show a commendably high degree of coherence, a tribute both to the work of the many
specialists involved in writing it and to the editorial skill of the Committee. A contributing
factor has been the fact that there are relatively few monocotyledonous groups offering
serious taxonomic problems - that is, beyond such notorious genera as Dactylorhiza and
Ophrys among the orchids and various grass genera.
As the final volume of the series, Volume 5 also includes a short history of the whole
Flora Europaea project, and a brief record of how in September 1977 thisfinalmanuscript
was handed over to the Press in Cambridge in the presence of many of the colleagues
and friends who had been involved in the work over the decades since it began. As the
Editorial Committee notes in the Preface, the completion of the whole work truly
represents a landmark in European floristics. It is indeed more than this; it represents
an unparalleled example of international botanical collaboration, for there surely can be
no other instance where workers of so many nationalities have co-operated over so long
a period of time and in so single-minded a manner to produce afloristicreference work.
No tribute can be complete without reference to the part played by the Cambridge
University Press, who have throughout handled difficult textual matter with such high
professional skill. One expects perfection from them, and in this volume, as in its
predecessors, they give it.
Yolande Heslop-Harrison
R. G., BISCOE, P. V. and DENNIS. C. (editors). Opportunities for Increasing Crop
Yields. 410 pp. Pitman, Boston, London and Melbourne. 1980. £24.00.
The Association of Applied Biologists contains members with a very wide range of
interests. It used to organize meetings where these members could pool their knowledge,
for example about the pests, diseases, physiology and agronomy of a particular crop.
In recent years the Association seems to have been suffering from schizophrenia. While
Presidential Addresses continue to recommend the integrated interdisciplinary approach,
the Association is steadily spawning groups that arrange their own programmes of
meetings. This divisive tendency is encouraged by short-sighted managements who
approve expenses for specialist staff to attend only specialist meetings. For its 75th
Anniversary, the A.A.B. tried to gather members of all interests together at a meeting
entitled Advances in Crop Production and Crop Protection. To cater for their separate
scientific and financial interests, there were up to eight concurrent sessions whose
programmes had been organized by the different groups. The broad-minded were able
to meet each other socially and, if strong-minded and agile, rush from session to session
to hear a diversity of interesting papers. But the weaker stayed put.
This volume permits those who remained at the interesting sessions on Opportunities
for Increasing Crop Yields to refresh their memories, and also to read selected papers
from other sessions on weed control, post-harvest physiology, plant breeding objectives
and mixed cropping. Papers from the sessions on Strategies for the Control of Cereal
Diseases are shortly to become available also, from another publisher.
Like many Conference proceedings, the contributions to this volume vary in style and
substance. I doubt whether even the very best are worth the 5-8 p per page that the price
of this book represents. Chapters covering physiological, nutritional and environmental
aspects of the growth and yield of about 10 different crops are contributed equably by
research workers from ARC crop-based institutes and several universities. This
parochialism is tempered by a contribution from J. H. J. Spiertz of Wageningen on the
HURD,