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.
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SPRING 2009
Table of Contents
» Growing SEEDS of Sustainability at UBC
Announcements:
In Memoriam
» Dr. Steven Clemants 1954-2008
Symposia, Conferences, Meetings
» ICPHB 2009
Positions Available
» Plant Science Bulletin needs a new editor to begin with Volume 56 (March, 2010)
Other News
Books Reviewed
Books Received for Review
Growing SEEDS of Sustainability at UBC
Social, Ecological, Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Program at the
University of British Columbia
This article is based on an educational workshop, entitled “Growing Sustainability
through Undergraduate and Graduate Research-UBC Social, Ecological, Economic
Development Studies (SEEDS)”, contributed/presented by Carolina Chanis,
Davis Chiu, Kelly Coulson, David Grigg, Brenda Sawada and Santokh Singh at the
BOTANY 2008 conference on July 27th, 2008 in Vancouver, Canada.
On the west coast of Canada, individuals, businesses, and institutions are
scrambling to get green. At the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver,
British Columbia, the SEEDS (Social, Ecological, Economic Development Studies)
Program is already in its eighth year, promoting sustainability with students,
faculty, and staff on campus. SEEDS brings together these groups in an academic
setting, imagining and implementing projects to promote a more socially, ecologically,
and economically sustainable campus.
Sustainability at UBC: A Historical Perspective
While SEEDS is the first academic program of its kind in Western Canada, UBC’s
commitment to sustainability did not begin at its inception. In fact, UBC has
been a leader in sustainable issues in a variety of ways. In 1990, UBC, with
over a hundred other universities, signed the Talloires Declaration, an official
statement adopted by university administrations of commitment to sustainability
issues on campus. As well as encouraging individuals – staff, students,
and faculty – to consider sustainable issues in all facets of their work,
UBC also continued to develop programs and initiatives to keep sustainable issues
at the forefront of life on campus. UBC became Canada’s first university
to adopt a sustainable development policy in 1997, and in 1998, continued to
lead the country in green issues by opening the doors of Canada’s first
on-campus Sustainability Office. These developments provided both a rich context
and a demand for a program that would bring together students, staff, and faculty
to work toward sustainability on campus. SEEDS was born, and since its beginning
in 2001, UBC has become Canada’s leading university in sustainable issues,
with sustainability consultation processes involving 20 faculties, 89 specific
targets for sustainability, and over 300 sustainability-related courses.
An Introduction to the SEEDS Program
UBC’s “Policy on Sustainable Development,” or “Policy
5,” when adopted in 1997, called for the establishment of a Sustainability
Advisory Committee, consisting of faculty, students, and staff. This committee
advised on the development of programs and initiatives to reach the goals set
out by Policy 5, including a program to focus on campus sustainability. Out
of this goal, the SEEDS program was developed.
The SEEDS program invites campus staff, faculty, and students to share their
ideas for sustainable improvements in their area of work or study. Staff members
supply the ideas and students research solutions with the help of a faculty
advisor. The benefits are multitudinous: students gain credit for their work,
while gaining experience with directed studies, and feeling that they are making
a personal contribution to campus life; faculty become involved in sustainable
issues often relating to other faculties or departments; staff are able to see
their ideas implemented, often improving their own jobs or workplaces; and the
university community benefits from cost-effective solutions that create a more
sustainable UBC campus.
The primary goal of the SEEDS program is to bring together and build relationships
between members of the university community who would normally not find themselves
sitting around the same table, working toward a common goal. Through working
together, and learning from each other, SEEDS participants not only help develop
campus sustainability, but also improve research, applied learning and project
development skills. SEEDS encourages its participants to continue to be involved
with on-campus sustainability after their projects are completed, and to become
ambassadors of sustainability in the university community.
SEEDS Projects
The first SEEDS project, completed in the first year of the program, brought
together a landscape architect and a master’s student in the School of
Community and Regional Planning, to map the network of heritage sites that are
situated all through the campus landscape. This project, “Place-making
at UBC: Planning a Heritage Trail,” set the stage for relating sustainability
to place – the buildings, landscape and plant resources, infrastructure,
and art on campus. Since this inaugural project, SEEDS has facilitated numerous
projects in a wide variety of faculties, from engineering to sciences to arts,
for example, a plan for can and bottle collection, a sociological analysis of
graffiti, and research on local food.
The development of a stormwater management stream on campus has also served
as the basis for many SEEDS projects: Sauder School of Business students provided
a cost-benefit analysis, a Biological Engineering student researched the feasibility
of using the stream as a fish habitat, and a Civil Engineering student laid
the foundations for the detailed design of the stream itself. Because the stormwater
management system has yet to be built, the options for future SEEDS projects
are numerous.
SEEDS has also facilitated a number of botany-related projects. Some examples
of such projects are: UBC Farm: Plans for Sustainable Organic Growth; The Effectiveness
of An Infra-red Weeder Applied at Varying Speeds and Time Intervals in Controlling
Weeds at Two Sites on the UBC Campus; Macmillan Precinct Oak Management Plan;
Roundup at UBC: The Road to a Pesticide Free Campus at UBC, and Examination
of Quercus rurba Along Main Mall at the University of British Columbia. Recently,
a number of Botany students have been working on a SEEDS project involving gas
exchange measurements in trees and shrubs growing on Sustainability Street in
University of British Columbia.
This year, a panel of UBC faculty, staff and students presented an overview
of the SEEDS program as a workshop, entitled “Growing Sustainability through
Undergraduate and Graduate Research-UBC Social, Ecological, Economic Development
Studies (SEEDS)” at the BOTANY 2008 conference held at UBC. SEEDS student
Carolina Chanis recently presented the details of her project on physiology
and sustainability of ferns. Through the SEEDS program, she was able to use
her knowledge and interest in both plant science and sustainability to monitor
ferns on UBC’s Sustainability Street for photosynthesis and transpiration
rates, as well as conduct hormone and red/blue light experiments on the plants.
SEEDS connected her with faculty and staff advisors who helped facilitate the
project, but also allowed her unprecedented freedoms in learning, highly valued
and unusual in undergraduate-level courses.
Contributions to Learning
The SEEDS program significantly contributes to the education of students, and
to the ongoing experiences of faculty and staff, however its influence stretches
beyond those directly involved with the program. The analyses conducted by students
for SEEDS add to the rich body of research on sustainability at UBC. Research
by SEEDS students has led to 20% biodiesel usage in Plant Operations vehicles,
UBC as a pesticide-free campus, the development of seven new gardens, and sustainable
seafood consumption by UBC Food Services. SEEDS participants are given a unique
opportunity in their studies to not only conduct research on sustainability,
but to actually put their ideas into action, for the benefit of the university
community as a whole. All projects are available for public viewing on the SEEDS
website <www.sustain.ubc.ca/seeds> so that research can be shared within
both the UBC and the greater community, and drawn upon for future sustainability
efforts.
As well as contributing to research efforts, SEEDS has also spread its influence
to the classroom. Projects have been adapted from the original model of a student,
faculty member, and staff-person involved in a student directed studies course,
to fit within the teaching curriculum. In the 2007-8 school year alone, two
departments incorporated SEEDS into entire undergraduate courses. A Food Systems
project assessing food services on campus allowed 210 fourth-year students,
five teaching assistants, and 22 staff members to participate in campus sustainability.
In Civil Engineering, 117 second-year students under the direction of four instructors
and three staff members collected data first-hand in order to create a water
balance model for South Campus. SEEDS projects in the classroom provide students
with a focus their learning, through local, sustainable, relevant projects rather
than abstract examples.
Economic Savings to the University
UBC’s leadership in sustainability stems from a commitment to creating
unique opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to participate in programs
like SEEDS, which provide the opportunity for environmental, social, and economic
innovation throughout the university. Continuing to advance sustainability at
UBC has had positive impact on all levels. The Sustainability Office website
<www.sustain.ubc.ca> tracks resources saved at UBC’s Vancouver campus
in real-time, so viewers can watch the numbers increase with each passing second.
As of September 2008, savings to UBC include: nearly 200 million sheets of printing
paper, almost 200 million kWh of electricity, over 20 billion liters of water,
nearly 80,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases reduced, and over 33 million dollars.
The SEEDS program specifically, has saved the university untold resources in
the forms of pesticides and unsustainable fuels and food. SEEDS research has
also lead to an increase in composting, thereby reducing the amount of garbage
produced on campus. In addition, SEEDS has saved the university more than $187,000
in consulting fees between 2003 and Spring 2008.
Perspectives of SEEDS Participants
Projects facilitated by the SEEDS department have numerous benefits, including
research-based and economic, for the UBC community, but they also truly enrich
the lives and learning of those directly involved. Below are statements from
UBC students, staff, and faculty, who have participated in the SEEDS program.
Feedback from Students:
“The SEEDS program for me was my favourite university experience. It
was so much more rewarding than a regular course. It balanced out my schedule
and my life with something that was my own and really exciting. I learnt a plethora
of practical skills such as time management, speaking in public situations and
communication. I would whole heartedly recommend this to any student with some
determination and passion for a topic.” – Forestry Student
“The SEEDS program has really changed my attitude towards sustainability
issues. I feel more optimistic and more willing to take action in my everyday
life.” – Commerce Student
“UBC is not an inaccessible institutional block. It is a community of
individuals doing their best. Getting to personally meet this network and play
a role was hugely rewarding.” – SEEDS Participant
Feedback from Staff:
“My involvement with SEEDS has been very beneficial in terms of enabling
me to connect with students who are eager to embark on new research initiatives
that build on an existing foundation of knowledge, and that provide useful information
for my department.” – Land and Building Services Staff Member.
“SEEDS has certainly been of great benefit to Plant Operations, not only
because of the free research but because it has allowed our staff to become
directly involved in learning mission of the university through participation
in a multitude of student projects.” – SEEDS Staff Advisor
Feedback from Faculty:
“The project report was unbelievable! The students tied in the entire
course. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read! I always benefit hugely
from SEEDS when I see students taking the theory and applying it to a practical,
relevant project.” – SEEDS Faculty Advisor
“The sustainability challenges our world faces are increasingly complex.
No longer can these challenges be addressed in isolation within the specialized
towers of academia, behind the glowing screens of our students. Rather, these
challenges require multi-stakeholder collaboration, curriculum greening, interdisciplinary
teaching, learning, and research that is action orientated. The SEEDS Program
provides an opportunity for this necessary endeavor. It helps creates opportunities
on campus to unite our academics with the communities they are embedded within
in working together to not only share knowledge but also to ultimately put into
practice collaboratively. When I think of the future of education, I think of
the SEEDS Program.” – Land and Food Systems Senior Instructor
The Future of SEEDS
As well as focusing on the projects that are currently shaping UBC, SEEDS staff
are also looking at the future of sustainability on campus. Over 30 projects
are in motion for the 2008-9 school term, building on previous sustainability
initiatives, and developing new facets for growth at UBC. SEEDS hopes to see
more involvement in faculty members’ curriculums, and more awareness of
the program throughout campus. In addition to projects at UBC, SEEDS is also
exploring a community program, which would apply sustainable practices to off-campus
needs, and give students, faculty, and staff the ability to connect with a greater
community. Since its inception, SEEDS has been contacted by university administrations
worldwide, asking for advice on starting an academic sustainability program.
A SEEDS-style program could be integrated into any university or college, regardless
of its size, and hopefully, other campuses will begin to implement such programs.
With the example of SEEDS at UBC, and the possibility of green programs and
institutions in universities across the country and the world, the future looks
bright for campus sustainability.
Allie Slemon is a 4th year Honours English student at the University of British
Columbia. She is currently working on a SEEDS project on green buildings podcasts.
Announcements
In Memoriam
Dr. Steven Clemants 1954-2008
A passion for plants came early for Steve Clemants, who went on to become one
of the leading botanists of the day. Born in Minnesota and raised in the towns
of Edina and Minnetonka, Minnesota, and Chicago and Normal, Illinois, Steve
developed a love of nature as a young boy. He had an affection for the flowers
that grew in his family's garden, particularly tulips, but he especially admired
wildflowers. Throughout his childhood, his mother, Doris, nurtured his interest,
teaching him about local wildflowers and where they grew.
After completing high school in Minnetonka, Steve attended the University of
Minnesota. He initially majored in computer science, but he missed the out-of-doors
and his nature studies. This led him to change his undergraduate major to botany,
his childhood love. His dual interests of botany and computer science served
Steve very well later in his career; he was instrumental in developing a number
of important databases for plant location records. Steve graduated from the
University of Minnesota in 1976 but remained there to pursue a master's degree
in botany with a minor in horticulture, which he obtained in 1979.
Steve's botanical pursuits took him to the City University of New York (CUNY)
where, working at the New York Botanical Garden with curator James Luteyn, he
pursued a doctorate in botany. His graduate work focused on
New World members of the blueberry family in the genus Bejaria, and this allowed
him to conduct field trips in the tropics. He obtained his doctorate in botany
from CUNY in 1984. It was during his graduate studies that his friend and fellow
graduate student Brian Boom introduced Steve to Grace Markman, then a volunteer
tour guide at the New York Botanical Garden. They later married.
After a brief teaching appointment at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson,
Steve accepted a position as a botanist with the New York Natural Heritage Program,
and he and Grace moved to the Albany area in 1985. Utilizing his skills in botany
and computer science, Steve developed a database of rare plant occurrences in
New York State. He also conducted extensive fieldwork in search of rare plants.
During this time his interests in plant research expanded beyond the blueberry
family to other families, including the rush family and goosefoot family.
In 1989, Steve accepted a position as a research taxonomist at Brooklyn Botanic
Garden, where he later served as director of Science; vice president of Science,
Publications, and Library; and senior research scientist. As Steve continued
his botanical research, he developed additional interests in urban ecology and
conservation. Shortly after arriving at the Garden, he founded the New York
Metropolitan Flora program, which has become an international model for studying
plants in urban environments. Data from this pioneering project are now yielding
important information on how human-caused phenomena, such as global warming
and development, are affecting the region's plants.
During his time at BBG, Steve published dozens of research papers. In 2006
he coauthored Wildflowers in the Field and Forest: A Field Guide to the Northeastern
United States (Oxford University Press) with New York Botanic Garden researcher
and photographer Carol Gracie. This book has become one of most popular field
guides for the Northeast. It is also used as a college textbook for field botany,
enabling people to learn more about the wild plants Steve had admired since
he was a boy. Steve also furthered botanical education by serving on the faculty
at Rutgers University and the City University of New York.
Steve recognized the need to protect the plants he loved so much and served
on numerous committees and boards of organizations active in local, national,
and international conservation efforts. During his career he was president of
the Nature Network; chair of the Invasive Plant Council of New York State; president
of the board of Botanic Gardens Conservation International's U.S. office; historian
of the Torrey Botanical Society; chairman of the Long Island Botanical Society;
and member of the Woodland Advisory Board of Prospect Park. He was also codirector
of the Center for Urban Restoration Ecology (CURE), a collaboration between
Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Rutgers University, the first scientific initiative
in the U.S. established to study and restore human-dominated lands. He served
as editor-in-chief of Urban Habitats, a peer-reviewed scientific e-journal on
the biology of urban areas around the world, which was launched in 2003.
In 2008, Dr. Clemants was instrumental in developing an agreement between the
NYC Parks Department and Brooklyn Botanic Garden committing the resources of
the two institutions to the conservation of plants native to New York City,
the first comprehensive conservation initiative targeting the City's native
plants. "Steve was a colleague and the leader of our mutual efforts to
discover, preserve, and publicize local botanical biodiversity," said Adrian
Benepe, NYC Parks Commissioner. "He will be deeply missed by all who care
about natural New York and the great
beauty of its parks and wild spaces."
Steve was a remarkably kind, giving, and patient man, who always
found time to assist students and other members of the public
who came to the Garden with questions and requests. Shortly before
Steve's passing, his extraordinary kindness was displayed when
he learned that a Ukrainian colleague and his wife-who had never
before been to New York-would briefly be in town during a flight
layover. Steve picked them up, took them on a whirlwind tour of
Brooklyn, and returned them to the airport in time for their flight.
Gerry Moore, director of Science at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said,
"Steve's extensive knowledge of botany and willingness to
help all who came to him with questions was a combination that
served the Garden and the public well. His example inspires us
to continue our research in the plant sciences, while always finding
time to share our knowledge and our curiosity with individuals,
from kindergartners to international researchers."
As news of his passing has spread, BBG science staff received messages from
around the world from colleagues who admired Steve and his work. Peter H. Raven,
president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, said, "Steve Clemants was a
bright light in the field of botany, a lovely man who was utterly fascinated
with plants, loved people, and made a marvelous contribution by combining his
passions into every facet of his life. No one has done a better job in involving
the public in the joy of learning about plants, finding them, thrilling in new
discoveries, and understanding their traits. Steve's contributions to science
were deep and numerous, and his contributions to development of the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden over the years, through good times and difficult ones, were of
fundamental importance in keeping that fine institution on an even keel.
His bright, friendly, pleasant personality will be missed as much as his outstanding
professional skills, not only in research and in administration but in education
and in his ability to uplift the spirit of everyone who knew him."
The Dr. Steven Clemants Wildflower Fund has been established to honor our late
colleague and friend. Steve's widow, Grace Markman, is working with the Greenbelt
Native Plant Center to plan a living memorial that will foster the planting
of native wildflower species in New York City parks.
Donations in his memory should be made out to "City Parks Foundation,
Dr. Steven Clemants Wildflower Fund," and mailed to City Parks Foundation,
c/o Greenbelt Native Plant Center, 3808 Victory Blvd., Staten Island, NY 10314.
Symposia, Conferences, Meetings
ICPHB 2009
International Conference on Polyploidy, Hybridization and Biodiversity
May 17 – 20, 2009 – Palais du Grand Large – Saint Malo –
FRANCE
The International Conference on Polyploidy, Hybridization and Biodiversity aims
at promoting knowledge exchanges and discussions on the latest developments
concerning these major drivers of genome shaping and speciation. A wide range
of topics will be covered such as the consequences of polyploidy on biodiversity,
hybrid and polyploid speciation, meiosis and fertility in polyploid species,
genome evolution and structure, transposable elements and DNA methylation, epigenetics
and gene regulation, heterosis, phenotypic variation ... The conference will
focus sessions on all these areas and therefore illuminate mechanistic and evolutionary
insights into many fundamental phenomena in biology. This undertanding is critical
for management and conservation of Biodiversity as well as for breeding programs
as most important crop species are relatively recent polyploids.
• February 28, 2009 : abstract submission deadline.
• March 10, 2009 : registration fees are cheaper before
this date.
• April 10, 2009 : refund for cancellation deadline
Preliminary program
The following scientific sessions are planned:
• S1 - Polyploidy and hybridisation as a source for genetic
and phenotypic novelties
• S2 - Long-term polyploid evolution: Comparative genomics,
gene retention-loss, diploidization
• S3 - Polyploidy: Effects on genome organization and structure
• S4 - Mechanisms for gene expression in plant polyploids
(transcriptome, proteome)
• S5 - Hybridization, polypoidy and epigenetics
• S6 - Meiosis, reproduction in polyploids
• S7 - Heterosis, gene dosage
• S8 - Reticulate evolution, history of Polyploids, phylogeny
• S9 - Ecological consequences of hybridisation and polyploidy,
invasion, diversification
Saint-Malo is a beautiful and well-known medieval city on
the NW coast of France (Brittany region). It is visited by thousands of tourists
every year due to its historical centre, attractive coasts and magnificent landscapes.
For more information see: http://www.icphb2009.univ-rennes1.fr/index.php
We are looking forward to seeing you in Saint-Malo, France in May 2009 !
Positions Available
Plant Science Bulletin needs a new editor to begin with Volume 56 (March,
2010).
Are you looking for a meaningful way to serve the Botanical Society of America?
Are you interested in desktop publishing? Would you like to correspond with
botanical colleagues in many disciplines about books, articles, and matters
of interest to the BSA? Need more information?
If your answer to ANY of these questions is yes, please communicate
your interest to Dr. Pat Herendeen (Chair, BSA
Publication Committee). PATRICK HERENDEEN, Chicago Botanic Garden,
1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, 60022 Phone: 202/994-5828, 847-835-6956.
E-mail pherendeen@chicagobotanic.org
Applications are welcome any time and no later than July 1, 2009. The BSA Publication
Committee will begin reviewing interested candidates during summer of 2009.
For a description of the Plant Science Bulletin see: http://www.botany.org/PlantScienceBulletin/
Books Reviewed
Field Guide to the Wild Orchids of Texas
Fluorescing World of Plant Secreting Cells
The Aliveness of Plants: The Darwins at the Dawn of Plant Science
Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy
Gardens and Cultural Change: A Pan-American Perspective
Ecology
The Names of Plants, ed. 4
Cycads of Vietnam
Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens
Genetic Glass Ceilings: Transgenics for Crop Biodiversity
Plants and Vegetation: Origins, Processes, Consequences
Burdock
Field Guide to the Wild Orchids
of Texas, by Paul Martin Brown, artwork by Stan
Folsom. 2008
University Press of Florida: Gainesville. 316 pages.
ISBN 978-0-8130-3159-0 (soft-bound). US $29.95.
Encompassing more, different vegetation and physiographic regions and a greater
land area than any other of the contiguous 48 United States, Texas certainly
looms large. Floristic treatments of Texas regions and the entire state have
produced prodigious works including the Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas
(Correll and Johnston 1979) and, more recently, Shinner and Mahler’s Illustrated
Flora of North Central Texas (Digges et al. 1999). Both of these volumes are
essentials when it comes to gaining knowledge of Texas’ vast vegetional
wealth, but neither of them is the kind of thing one wants to carry into the
field on a regular basis. Reasonably enough one might wish for a real field
guide treating Texas plants, the kind of thing that fits easily into a backpack
or even a large pocket, and the wish is cleverly fulfilled if your interest
is in orchid identification.
Paul Martin Brown’s Field Guide to the Wild Orchids of Texas is a sturdily
bound volume with a number of features that make it a joy for orchid enthusiasts.
The text is divided into four major sections: introduction to Texas vegetation
regions and to orchid terminology and keying; the actual field guide portion
featuring alphabetically arranged genera found within the state and individual
species’ descriptions and accompanying illustrative figures; a section
of references and resources that provides a smorgasbord of taxonomic vantage
points; and a region-by-region synopsis of what orchids one is likely to encounter
where. Several appendices, a glossary, a bibliography, and index complete the
book.
In terms of true utility, the keys to genera and species within genera are
what make this guide most valuable. The majority of genera can readily be determined
using the appropriate key, but there are exceptions. If confronted with a Malaxis,
a novice would never find it because the key groups it among genera with basal
leaves, but all known North American species produce cauline leaves. If one
is familiar with Platanthera species in other locales, the use of a three-toothed
or erose labellum margin to segregate out species assigned by Brown to the genus
Gymnadeniopsis would surely cause some confusion (where would Platanthera integrilabia
key if ever found in Texas?). At the species level identification tends to be
more straight-forward. Information regarding species appears as a page of text
and one or more illustrations facing photographs of whole plants, inflorescences,
and vegetation and a distribution dot map for the species in Texas. Plant descriptions,
habitat, and comments on species provide good, general information but are lacking
in detail for those with an intimate knowledge of native orchids.
Likewise, the photographs and illustrations serve as useful references in the
field but do not suffice for providing diagnostic characteristics necessary
to definitively nail down an orchid’s identity. Comparing Wild Orchids
of Texas to two classics of North American orchid identification, The Native
Orchids of the United States and Canada excluding Florida (Luer 1975) and Orchids
of the Western Great Lakes Region (Case 1987), Brown’s field guide squarely
occupies the middle ground as an identification tool. The photographs and illustrations
in Luer are more detailed; Case’s species descriptions provide such clarity
that one can envision the plant in its habitat without ever having visited a
field site. To the good, Brown’s text is more informative than Luer’s
and, in many instances, with better figures than Case.
Depending on individual predilections different readers will find the other
sections of Brown’s field guide to be more or less useful. In part three,
References and Resources, both the species check list and distribution list
by physiographic region provide the kinds of field tripping incentives well
known to anyone who maintains a life list. The comparative taxonomy, complete
with Brown’s commentary on previous publications covering the orchid flora
of Texas, does little more than hint at the sniping common among rival orchid
taxonomists. Likewise, the synonymies and misapplied names seem better omitted
from a field guide meant to encourage a passion for native orchids. Orchid Hunting,
part four of Brown’s text, should be a treasure for anyone finding him
or herself spending some time in any of Texas’ eco-regions, particularly
if time is available for orchid seeking. Appendix 1, a modification of two prior
publications, speculates on Platanthera chapmanii (or P. Xchapmanii) origins
and interactions with other Platanthera species, a topic of continued debate
and investigation probably better presented in a different venue. The remaining
appendices (two and three), show distributions and flowering times, respectively.
In summary the Field Guide to the Wild Orchids of Texas provides a mix of field-useful
and field not-so-useful information. Enthusiasts will find this book handy as
a guide to identifying native Texas orchids. Serious orchid researchers will
find parts of it annoying at best, but those parts aren’t ones to be read
in the field.
- Nancy E. Cowden, Ph.D. Biology Department, Lynchburg College,
1501 Lakeside Drive, Lynchburg, Va. 24501
Literature Cited
Case, F.W., Jr. 1987. Orchids of the Western Great Lakes Region.
Cranbrook Institute of Science Bulletin 48.
Correll, D.S. and M.C. Johnston. 1979. Manual of the Vascular Plants
of Texas. The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas.
Digges, G.M., Jr., B.L. Lipscomb, and R.J. O’Kennon. 1999. Shinner
and Mahler’s Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas. Botanical
Research Institute of Texas and Austin College. Sida, Botanical Miscellany,
no. 16.
Luer, C.A. 1975. The Native Orchids of the United States and Canada
excluding Florida. The New York Botanical Garden.
Fluorescing World of Plant Secreting
Cells, by Victoria V. Roshchina, 2008
ISBN 9-781578 085156, 338 pages, (hardcover US $98.60),
Science Publishers, Enfield, New Hampshire, USA, an imprint of
Edenbridge Ltd. British Isles.
Autofluorescence occurs in many living cells and tissues including microbials,
animals, and plants when excited by ultraviolet or violet irradiation Stereomicroscopy
of luminescence tissues and cells are especially attractive and distinct and
have become a separate method of cellular analysis in many biological applications.
For example, autofluorescence endoscopy has been used in assorted biomedicine
applications such as differentiating between normal and cancerous animal tissues,
looking at eye corneas with regards to diabetes, and gastrointestinal malfunctions.
Fluorescent proteins found in sea animals also are used in genetic engineering.
Despite many achievements with regards to luminescence microscopy, little has
been published about the compounds that contribute to autofluorescence of living
organisms.
‘Fluorescent World of Plant Secreting Cells’, written by Victoria
V. Roshchina summarizes information on autofluorescence of plant secretory cells
as possible bioindicators and biosensors. She also provides practical applications
of confocal microscopy and microspectrofluorimetry that can be applied at many
universities and laboratories. Roshchina is regarded as one of the world’s
authorities on cell fluorescence, having published more than 63 papers on this
topic. Her book contains seven main chapters that possess major themes and subheadings.
At the end of the book are two appendices including a glossary of biological
terms and color photographs of secretory cells, a useful bibliography, a taxonomic
plant (Latin) index, and a subject index.
Chapter 1 provides a synopsis of the characteristics of fluorescence cells,
their placement in plant tissues, techniques used to study autofluorescence,
and roles of fluorescent structures such as attracting insect pollinators, aiding
in defense against parasites and pests, and transmitting chemosignals from one
to cell to another. Special attention is given to secondary metabolites that
are present in secretory cells of various plant species and their color of fluorescence.
Excellent tables are provided including the fluorescence maxima of substances
in organs of plant taxa and the autofluorescence of organisms that are associated
with plants including fungal spores, ticks, spiders, and cyanobacteria. In this
chapter and throughout the book, Roshchina notes that particular compounds contribute
to fluorescent intensities: phenols, flavins, alkaloids, quinines, polyacetylenes,
terpenoids, and coumarins.
Differences in the fluorescence of external (trichomes, hydathodes, and nectaries)
and internal secretory cells (laticifers, resin ducts, and idioblasts) among
spore and seed-bearing plants is the major theme of Chapter 2. More than 141
species are discussed regarding their type of secreting cells and secretions
and fluorescence maxima. Many examples are given that show how fluorescence
colors vary within a plant as well as throughout its life history. For example,
Roshchina discussed how 1) secretory cells associated with seeds and leaves
of Thuja occidentalis possessed different emissions, 2) capitate and non-capitate
trichomes on the same leaf of Calendula officinalis had different fluorescence
maxima, and 3) the pigment composition and maxima in the fluorescence spectra
of intact pollen grains of Philadelphus grandiflorus varied with maturation.
The third chapter discusses particular aspects of fluorescing secreting surfaces
and compounds that are contained in secretory cells. Topics discussed include
crystal excretions on root and leaf surfaces, exine, intine, and cytoplasm of
sporopollenin, extracts of organic solvents produced by bud scales, flower petals,
and leaves, and secondary metabolites including flavonoids, phenols, and terpenoids.
She notes that factors associated with fluorescence are governed by temperature,
pH of medium, the chemical nature of the compound, and the ability of the external
chemical to oxidize or reduce the fluorescence substance.
Chapter 4 explores further as to how secretory structures change throughout
their development in spore and seed-bearing plants. For example, bud scales
of Alnus, Betula and Populus fill up with resin-like secretions that give off
a bright blue-yellow luminescence in the early spring but this luminescence
disappears when the bud scales drop and the young leaves emerge. Roshchina mentioned
that this secretory function may be associated with protecting primordial leaves
from pest and late frost damage. Additionally, she noted that oil cells and
ducts, glandular trichomes, and salt-containing glands alter in autoflourscence
during a plants development which may reflect alterations in a composition and/or
redox state of accumulated secondary products.
Interactions between cells of the same plant species or among different species
related to fluorescent signaling is the focus of Chapter 5. Roshchina mentioned
that pollen-pistil contact at fertilization, root-seedling contacts, pollen-pollen
interaction (stimulating or inhibiting pollen tube growth), and microbial parasites
entering leaf sheaths of economically important grass species, all exhibited
changes in fluorescence. Cell-acceptor or signal-stimulus responses commonly
cause the recipient to generate a secreting substance that may be a protein,
lipid, oxidant, or antioxidant. These mechanisms may be of interest to biochemists
and physicists.
Chapter 6 discusses how fluorescent secretory cells have the potential of making
pharmaceutical drugs, determining cell viability, and monitoring ecological
disturbance without performing tissue homogenizations and long-biochemical manipulations.
Emphasis is given to secretory cells within microspores of Equisetum arvense
and assorted species of angiosperm pollen that are capable of responding to
ozone fluctuations, peroxides, and stress. Charts, graphs, and reactions showing
substrates and products clearly depict treated and untreated situations.
The final chapter examines how some fluorescent secretory compounds such as
sesquiterpene lactones and alkaloids may be used as histological stains in studying
intercellular and intracellular interactions. Most of the secretory compounds
used in these studies were of weedy angiosperms and/or medicinal or poisonous
pharmaceutical plants. In many instances, secretory compounds are able to bind
with ATPase, cyclic AMP, contractile proteins, nucleic acids and lipids causing
them to fluorescence under the irradiation of ultra-violet light, therefore,
showing the location of particular structures.
The field of fluorescing cells is a dynamic field. This book provides a good
basis of understanding plant secreting cells. Throughout the book there are
overlapping themes, misspelled words, and word spacing errors. Data contained
in this book, however, will remain pertinent for years to follow. This book
is an excellent reference for professionals, researchers, and advanced students
that are interested in ecology, plant science, criminology, and luminescence
microscopy.
- Nina L. Baghai-Riding, Division of Biological and Physical
Sciences, Delta State University
The Aliveness of Plants: The Darwins
at the Dawn of Plant Science. Ayres, Peter. 2008
ISBN 978-1-85196-970-8 (Cloth US$99.00) 227 pp. Pickering
& Chatto, 21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH, UK.
This is the perfect book for every botanist to read and digest as we begin
2009, the 200th anniversary year of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th
anniversary of his publication of the origin of species. In fact, it should
be required reading for ALL biologists. Using the vehicle of three generations
of the Darwin family, Ayres presents a history of the origin of botanical science
from the 18th into the 20th centuries – the transition from gentleman
philosophers (Erasmus) doing “country house experiments”(attributed
to Julius von Sachs in reference to Charles) to experimental scientists in their
laboratories (Francis, who studied with Sachs). It demonstrates the transition
of botany from a subfield of medicine whose practitioners had medical degrees
to an independent, leading science. For our non-botanist colleagues it is instructive
to demonstrate how misleading is the popular image of Charles the evolutionist
because he studied plants as much as animals. “It has always pleased me
to exalt plants in the scale of organized beings…any proposition [is]
more readily tested in botanical works…than zoological.” (Darwin
to J.D. Hooker)
Plants were a hobby for Erasmus Darwin, who was by training a physician and
by inclination a poet and philosopher. He inherited financial security and social
position and passed this on to his succeeding generations. Erasmus is perhaps
best known for his poem, The Botanic Garden, written in two parts. In the first,
The Economy of Vegetation emphasizes insectivorous plants while the second,
The Loves of the Plants, describes the Linnaean System. More significant, though
was Phytologia, published two years before his death. Here Erasmus provides
a synthesis of the state of botanical knowledge in 1800. He includes the works
of Hales, Priestly, Lavoisier, and others (including his own) examining plants
as photosynthetic organisms. Many of the individuals mentioned were his personal
friends (also including Benjamin Franklin) and others he knew indirectly via
his friends. He clearly anticipates the emergence of plant physiology from within
botany but he also covers sexual selection, insectivorous plants, artificial
selection and expounds a (pre-Lamarkian) theory of evolution. Phytologia was
the standard for British botanical thought for the next several decades and
his example of networking was taken up both by his grandson and great grandson.
Somewhat surprising is the little credit Charles gave to his grandfather for
some of his ideas and inclinations – not just on evolution, but on the
structure and function of plants. For instance, the world knew little about
insectivorous plants until Charles published his book on that subject in which
he declares “I heard that insects were thus caught, but knew nothing further
on the subject.” Yet Erasmus had a fascination with insectivorous plants
which formed a major part of Phytologia in which he called Drosera the “Queen
of the marsh.” This is the same plant referred to by Charles’ wife,
Emma, in a letter to Charles Lyell’s wife, “he is treating Drosera…
just like a living creature, and I suppose he hopes to end in proving it to
be an animal.” Later, in a letter to Asa Gray, Darwin admitted “[Drosera]
is a wonderful plant, or rather a most sagacious animal.” Gray, long a
friend of Darwin, is credited by Ayres of suggesting to Darwin that he pursue
a study of climbing plants.
The best known of Darwin’s botanical books is The Power of Movement in
Plants,.co-authored with his son, Francis. This book grew out of the revision
of The Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants in which the younger Darwin assisted
with editing. Francis’ mark in the subsequent revisions of all of his
father’s books can be seen in the citations of others’ works which
begin to appear. Francis’ medical training required a research thesis
and he was trained in the “modern” laboratory where specialized
equipment and careful measurements were the norm. Similarly, “modern”
standards of citation were required. It was natural for Francis to be concerned
that his father’s books met the new standards of scientific publication.
Francis left a promising career in animal physiology to assist his father and
in doing so brought the tools and techniques of laboratory biology to the partnership.
Francis, unlike his father, was fluent in German and made two visits to Germany
to study with Sachs, the world’s pre-eminent plant physiologist. The Darwins
and Sachs had differing views on tropisms which is reflected in their later
writings. Francis recalled that “Sachs was most kind and helpful [during
the first visit], and under his direction I contributed a small paper to his
Arbeiten…” Sachs later wrote: “Personal acquaintances often
have their good side. I first became aware of the whole wretchedness of Darwin’s
activities when Francis Darwin studied here…and when the miserable book
‘On Movements’ appeared, I realized that here we are dealing with
literary rascals.” As a result, “Power of Movement” was viewed
less favorably when it was published than it is today!
Francis’ botanical achievements usually are lost in the shadow of his
more famous father. Yet like Charles and Erasmus, Francis was elected to the
Royal Society based on his own work in plant physiology - - particularly on
the function of stomata – a topic that was of interest to his great grandfather
a century earlier. He also played a significant role in the development of botany
as an independent scientific discipline at Cambridge and of “the new botany”
in Britain. We are aware of the circle of friends Charles Darwin gathered around
himself that influenced his studies. I was intrigued by the circle of friends
and relatives around Francis, including: F. F. Blackman, Sidney Vines, R.A.
Fisher, Henry Marshall Ward, and especially William Bateson.
In the last chapter, Ayres briefly traces the Darwinian botanical legacy deep
into the 20th century. We are familiar with the thread leading from Darwin through
Fritz Went and the discovery of auxin. Less familiar are Francis’ contributions
to the statolith theory of gravitropism, crop physiology in general, and the
links between photosynthesis and transpiration. The latter thread connects to
current work on climate change. There are extensive end notes and works cited
and a thorough and complete index. I would have liked additional figures, both
of the personalities cited and particularly from Francis’ works. It was
an enjoyable read for me and would be accessible to my students.
- Marshall D. Sundberg, Emporia State University, Emporia,
KS 66801.
Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy.
Franklin, Allan, A.W. F. Edwards, Daniel J. Fairbanks, Daniel
L. Hartl, and Teddy Seidenfeld. 2008
ISBN 978-0-8229-5986-1 (Paper US$27.95) 330 pp. University
of Pittsburgh Press, Eureka Building, Fifth Floor, 3400 Forbes
Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.
As we move into the world of post-Mendelian genetics, of RNAi and dicers, it
may be worth reflecting on how this all got started over 100 years ago. For
close to a century, a particular view of genetics, called Mendelian, was dominant
both amongst professional geneticists, and in general education extending to
the middle school level. It was while working with middle school and high school
teachers that I first encountered the notion that Mendel might have perpetrated
a fraud. I applied a good deal of effort trying to understand both the charges
and the various responses that were appearing through the 1990s. Until recently
the questions raised by Fisher appeared largely unanswerable. This volume may
put that problem to rest.
Mendel obviously did not think of himself as a geneticist, but as a student
of hybridization. His training in physics, and experience in practical horticulture,
allowed him to gain new insights into the way that characteristics are transmitted
from one generation to another. His discoveries were largely ignored for the
first 30 years, and were treated as controversial by those who paid attention.
Carl Naegeli, pre-eminent botanist, actively discouraged him from pursuing his
ideas. Other prominent workers preferred their own more traditional interpretations.
There are no records of efforts to repeat his work until about 1900.
Controversy is often good for book sales but rarely nice for the participants.
When both are long-deceased it is mainly about their reputations, and when the
controversy involves science, it is usually the whole scientific enterprise
that suffers. That is certainly so in this case. Living in a state where Darwin,
another great 19th century figure, is also frequently ridiculed, I am acutely
aware of how important it is for successful science to maintain the highest
possible level of integrity.
So what is the controversy? Simply put, some of Mendel’s results are
“too good to be true” in a statistical sense, if they represent
the complete output of the clear, simple research program that he described
in his two lectures to the scientific society of Brno (or Brunn) in early 1865.
The publication describing Mendel’s work, though reasonably widely distributed,
was apparently not widely read until about 1900. At that time it was recognized
for it’s clarity of presentation of the case for discrete units of heredity,
and as R.A. Fisher described it, was used for polemical purposes by the “rediscoverers.”
Most interesting is Fisher’s observation that Bateson used Mendel as
a cudgel to beat Darwin, whose Theory of Natural Selection Bateson opposed.
Darwin had a very fuzzy notion of how heredity worked, and early on, his thinking
was Lamarckian and he viewed heredity as a blending process. Mendel’s
work describes a clear substrate on which selection can work ( a collection
of discrete characters), though no description of how change (speciation) might
happen, other than by recombining (not blending)of already existent traits.
Darwin supplied the concept of mutation, which Mendel never mentions.
We have no evidence that Mendel himself was opposed to Darwin’s conclusions
about selection as a force for speciation. Through careful analysis of Mendel’s
copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species, Fairbanks and Rytting (chapter 7 if
this book) noted that Mendel was well aware of Darwin’s thinking by the
time he published his results in 1865. Some key passages were highlighted by
him. However, there is no way that Mendel could have known of Darwin’s
work in 1856 when he began his studies in earnest, or even in 1859. Mendel read
little or no English and had a German translation of Origins from 1863. Mendel
made few recorded comments on Darwin or his theory, although Fisher argues that
Mendel in fact sought to explain some of Darwin’s observations of variation
under domestication by his own discovery of discrete factors. Mendel’s
text may be read in that way.
Fisher was not the first to note Mendel’s “too good to be true”
statistics. In 1902, W.F.R. Weldon made a detailed analysis of the results and
applied the newly invented Chi squared statistic. He published his analysis
in the first volume of Karl Pearson’s Biometrika. A few years later Fisher,
as an undergraduate, gave a talk presenting a similar commentary, but it was
not until 1936 that he put all of his detailed analysis into a formally written
form, in Annals of Science. Oddly, Fisher never mentions Weldon’s work,
though he used the same statistical tool. The centennial year of Mendel’s
discovery sparked a renewed interest in Mendel, and the “too good”
fit noted so clearly by Fisher. Since 1965 there have been dozens of detailed
analyses of both texts, with both attacks and defenses of Mendel.
This volume, a well produced collective effort, comes about 40 years after
the “too good” controversy really took off. The five main contributors
to this volume include a physicist, a statistician, two biologists and one philosopher/statistician.
They have included a standard translation of Mendel’s work (chapter 2),
that was used by Bateson in the early1900s, with his 1909 commentary, and Fisher’s
complete paper from 1936 (chapter 3). Physicist and philosopher of science Allan
Franklin provides an overview of the controversy in the first 75 page chapter.
In this he lays out the problem with a thorough review of both Mendel and Fisher’s
works. He also notes the various proposals pro and con, regarding whether Mendel
cheated, or Fisher tried to discredit Mendel.
Chapter four, a closely reasoned 25 pages by statistician A.W.F. Edwards, incidentally
Fisher’s last student, thoroughly examines the problem of the too close
results, while a postscript by Edwards considers alternative hypotheses. The
fourth chapter is reprinted from a 1986 volume. There is little or no doubt
left after Edward’s discussion, that the data presented by Mendel is really
a “best presentation” of selected results, not a complete record
of his studies. Extreme results with poor chi-squared fits seem to have been
trimmed away
Chapter five gives a summary of the controversy by V. Orel, a Czech biographer
of Mendel, and D.L. Hartl, a professor of biology at Harvard. They analyze carefully
the cogent notion that a scientific paper is rhetoric, not a diary. Mendel first
presented his work orally and published it as presented, so his paper is clearly
a rhetorical work. Certain phrases and ideas are repeated several times for
emphasis by Mendel, while many details are omitted. This chapter appeared in
another volume in 1994.
Much work has gone into attempts to reconstruct the chronology and estimate
the scale of Mendel’s work, most notably that of Fisher in his 1936 paper.
Over the years, many biologists have added and subtracted more and less useful
bits of information regarding the behavior of peas and their pests. Many of
those authors are cited by Fairbanks and Rytting (chapter 7). The conclusion
is that Mendel could have done what he said he did in the space and time he
indicated. Left at issue is just exactly how he did it. Fisher greatly admired
Mendel’s clarity of presentation, but was bothered by the “too good”
fit. Seidenfeld provides yet another look at the “goodness of fit”
problem in chapter 6, specifically considering various ways that the data might
have been trimmed or cooked. A very interesting appendix shows a modern day
result with peas where again the fit is remarkably good.
Finally, Fairbanks and Rytting’s chapter considers both botanical and
historical aspects of the case, in an article that first appeared in 2001 in
the American Journal of Botany. A very interesting point in their careful reading
of Mendel, is that the first four traits he chose to study were those already
analyzed by others. In his second year of study he successfully added three
others. Thus Mendel used a completely logical approach to his work, first confirming
and then extending a series of observations. His special contribution was to
devise a simple mathematical relationship to explain the observed phenomena,
and to propose a distinct mechanism that allows that relationship to come to
fruition.
Fairbanks, in a postscript to chapter seven, reviews the ongoing
(largely internet) controversy and provides logical correctives.
One point that remains perhaps insoluble, in the absence of any
original data or notebooks, is the “too good” fit.
But the most reasonable hypothesis for why only a portion of Mendel’s
results are presented, and of those only the results that fit
within a reasonable closeness to his model is simple. It may be
drawn from a passage that Mendel was surely familiar with- “there
is much else.. but this is written so that you might believe.
For if it were all to be recorded, perhaps the whole world could
not contain the books”. Certainly it would be more than
we would ever want to read. The present volume should suffice.
- Lawrence Davis, Department of Biochemistry,
Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.
Gardens and Cultural Change: A Pan-American
Perspective. Edited by Michel Conan and Jefferey
Quilter. 2007
ISBN: 978-0-88402-330-2. 110 pages. Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection and Spacemaker Press, Washington, D. C.
The goal of a Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium in Garden History in 2003 was to engage
anthropologists and archaeologists throughout the Americas in a discussion of
the historic and current links between garden construction and cultural change.
Although the editors admit that this ambitious goal was not quite realized,
the book contains five interesting and very different papers more or less on
this subject from Argentina, Mexico, the Caribbean and New York that present
a hint of what can be learned from studying the history of gardens from an economic
and political perspective.
From Argentina come two studies. Sonia Berjman traces the history of promenades
and parks in Buenos Aires from 1580 to the present, tracking the Spanish original
love for plazas, especially as sites for bullrings, followed by park plans influenced
European models, which led to the somewhat gloomy assessment of present-day
parks that reflect modern urbanization, paving and privatization of historic
parklands and limited accessibility. Daniel Shavelzon follows a specific Buenos
Aires area park, Palermo, which had started as the consciously non-European
home of Juan Manuel de Rosas, the governor of Argentina in the early 1800s.
The buildings were destroyed, landscaping removed and land use changed over
time as each new leader sought to impose his own ideas (and statue) on the landscape.
Parks are also the subject of Rachel Iannacone’s discussion of early
20th century efforts in New York to provide small parks throughout crowded areas
of New York City as public health measures. These small spaces were first designed
as “picturesque” landscaped areas where fences kept people from
all but the sidewalks lined with benches. After considerable controversy, these
parks and others only gradually began to incorporate areas such as children’s
playgrounds, gymnasiums and even vegetable gardens maintained by a local farm
school.
The actual form of gardens and their role in the economics and culture of the
wetlands of the Valley of Mexico is documented by Saul Alcantara Onofre. Chinampas
were ingenious rectangular garden plots about 20 feet wide and 40 or so feet
long and were built by native populations of the area long before the appearance
of the Spanish in the sixteenth century. They were constructed by layering vegetation
from the wetlands and muck from the bottom and could be moved around on the
waterways. Incredibly fertile, they were used to grow shrubs, vegetables and
flowers which were harvested and moved along waterways by small boat directly
to the center of Mexico City. Gradual encroachment by the urban areas of Mexico
City, draining of wetlands and diversion of water to Mexico City has today greatly
reduced the number of these cultivated rafts.
Catherine Benoit addresses economic role of gardens as sources of food and
private space for slaves on Central American plantations. Although enslaved
Africans did not design the layouts of plantations, they were responsible for
building their own housing and could to some extent control their plantings,
often using plants and customs from their native lands. This resulted in a unique
Creole garden culture which outlived the plantation era and can be seen in urbanized
areas in many parts of the Carribbean and the Americas today.
So, the book contains five well-referenced historical accounts, each of which
is interesting, but the whole can not really be summarized. The book’s
format, with text running almost from edge to edge of pages nine inches wide
makes it extremely difficult to read, and editing, particularly in the chapter
on Mexican gardens, was inconsistent, although illustrations throughout were
well done. The study of garden history would perhaps have been better served
if these chapters had been published separately in appropriate journals where
they could be listed in bibliographic data bases, otherwise it is difficult
to imagine how anyone interested in the solid research done on these topics
would ever find them.
- Joanne M. Sharpe, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Ecology. Cain, Michael L., William
D. Bowman, and Sally D. Hacker. 2008
ISBN 978-0-87893-083-8. Casebound. US $107.95. 552 pp.
Sinauer Associates, Inc., P.O. Box 407, Sunderland MA 01375.
Ecology begins with physical environment and biosphere characteristics that
influence living systems. This text is exemplary in providing this often-neglected
information, as well as explaining why this knowledge is important in the study
of ecology. Evolution is woven through, and is introduced in a stand-alone chapter
(6). Populations follow, with excellent discussions of life histories, population
distributions and abundance, growth and regulation, and dynamics. The third
unit separates competition, predation and herbivory, parasitism, and mutualism/commensalism
from the fourth unit on communities. Change is a theme throughout the book,
and is carried into the sections on communities. A chapter is dedicated to biogeography.
The ecosystem unit includes production (oceanic to global patterns of net primary
production, plus secondary production), energy flow, and nutrient cycling. The
final unit on applied and large-scale ecology addresses conservation, ecosystem
management/landscape ecology, and global ecology. Three chapters were guest-written
by other authors, although the style of writing and chapter format remain consistent.
Ecology textbook authors strive to achieve the perfect balance between content
and book length. The exponential explosion of ecological understanding handicaps
authors as they strive to be both concise and complete. Cain, Bowman, and Hacker
recognized this challenge, and developed as their guiding writing principles
“Teaching Comes First” and “Less is More.”
“Teaching Comes First” is unmistakably manifested throughout the
textbook. Chapters are clearly organized in an outline format with highlighted
key concepts. The chapter subheadings are actually colored boxes reiterating
these key concepts. The opening for each chapter is a “case study,”
a quandary that ecologists dealt with, with a description of the background
information needed to understand the problem and the resulting questions that
arose from the particular issue. Examples of case studies include Frozen Frogs
(Coping with Environmental Variation chapter), Nemo Grows Up (Life History Analyses
chapter), Carnivorous plants (Competition chapter), and Killer Algae (Nature
of Communities chapter). Questions are often posed at the end of these starting
blocks. The chapter then delves into the theories surrounding that case study,
although the case study is only occasionally mentioned. At the end of the chapter,
the reader comes full circle back to the case study for a clear understanding
of the application of these theories and concepts to the understanding (and
perhaps solving) of the issue. Woven throughout the highly-readable narrative
are scientific processes of study, the iterative nature of scientific discovering,
and the impact of human action. Chapter summaries and conceptual problems follow.
The chapters end with suggested readings that provide not only citations but
also a brief discussion of why that particular reading is suggested. The authors
succeeded in aligning this book with the principle “Teaching Comes First.”
“Less is More” is less evident in this book, thankfully. The amount
of information in each chapter is significant. For example, the book begins
by setting the physical frameworks for life on earth….which includes an
amazing discussion of climate, atmospheric and oceanic circulation, etc. A unit
on the biosphere follows, with an excellent case study on Pleistocene diversity
on the North American Great Plains as compared with current Serengeti plains.
A detailed discussion of photosynthesis, including leaf development responses
to light intensity and photosynthetic responses to temperature, is quite extensive
for a general ecology textbook. A discussion of photosynthetic pathways follows,
and then flows into mechanisms animals use to cope with environmental variation
in food sources. This book is literally packed full of example following example
for the presented key concepts. Illustrations and examples model all life forms,
including human. Global information is presented alongside regional (on the
same page one can find a rainfall/temperature chart from Denison Nebraska USA
coupled with a picture of the Altai Plateau in Russia; later the reader finds
photographs on Corophium volutator-created tidal mudflats and the consequence
of Corophium-parasitism on these physical structures facing a page with a figure
on disease frequency in Romania before and after vaccination, for example).
In striving for conciseness, many textbooks jettison the use of numerous examples
to show how a concept works across multiple organisms or differing ecological
scale. Fortunately, these authors chose not to minimize conceptual examples,
and thus perhaps failed to fulfill their “Less is More” principle.
The authors also had two major goals – to provide the right emphasis
with the right degree of difficulty, and to ensure integration of ecological
functioning across multiple levels. Perhaps the reason the authors so fully
achieve the “right emphasis” goal is their lack of achieving the
“less is more” principle. The abundance and diversity of examples
within the book succeed in articulating common principles across multiple scales
of view. These fascinating stories clearly reveal the connectedness of the world
in which we live and the commonality of processes across multiple ecological
scales. These two concepts are very important for students to not only know
but to understand and be able to articulate. A narrative presentation style
ensures that the content is well-integrated and “flows,” while the
case study recapitulation at the end of the chapter brings student learning
full circle. This book’s straight-forward, captivating style of presentation
should lead students to a more sophisticated level of comprehension.
The strengths of this book are many: clearly understood narration; significant
detail and examples for each concept; well-researched examples across multiple
life forms, habitats, and ecological scales; informative and excellent illustrations,
diagrams, and photographs; recent and pertinent examples; interwoven discussions
on scientific processes of discovery; a detailed and well-illustrated introduction
to the physical processes that shape individual, population, community, and
ecosystem characteristics and functionalities, etc.
The criticisms of this book are much fewer. The narrative writing style is
a bit distracting for this traditional reader….and as I push my undergraduate
students to write in technical style, this book (with sentences beginning with
“It” and “There”) will not be a good example for them
to model. However, I think my students would actually read and learn from this
textbook, so that may be an acceptable concession. The book is highly detailed,
providing exactly the types of examples I bring to the classroom to explain
the concepts for my students. If the book provides these examples, I would have
to modify my lectures to complement the book ….which again may be a lucrative
trade. This is not a highly mathematical book. Some formulae are presented (population
growth, etc.), but very little on quantitative ecology techniques and interpretation.
These would need to be presented in an accompanying laboratory, if one considered
quantitative techniques an essential part of the initial undergraduate ecology
course. Perhaps the online problem sets could be incorporated into the class
discussions.
Would my students gain from using this textbook? Absolutely. Would they have
a more useful understanding of ecological processes? Absolutely. Would I need
to change how my ecology course is structured to accommodate this book? Definitely.
- Joyce Phillips Hardy, Department of Physical and Life Sciences,
Chadron State College, Nebraska. 69337
The Names of Plants, ed. 4. Gledhill, David.
2008
viii + 426 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-86645-3 (hardback US$95.00);
ISBN 978-0-521-68553-5 (paperback US$45.00). Cambridge University
Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013.
For some readers, “Fourth Edition” may be all the affirmation one
needs in order to know that a book has merit. Certainly, for The Names of Plants,
ed. 4, that is the case. The introductory pages provide a concise history of
the naming of plants from ancient to modern times, a synopsis of botanical Latin,
and accounts of formal botanical nomenclature (based on International Code of
Botanical Nomenclature) and nomenclature of cultivated plants (based on International
Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants). Most of the book (pp. 32--412,
some 17,000+ entries) is a glossary of words and word-elements used in names
of genera and in epithets in binomials and trinomials.
Botanical lexophiles probably have W. T. Stearn’s Botanical Latin (ISBN
0-88192-321-4, also an ed. 4 book) and/or R. W. Brown’s Composition of
Scientific Words (ISBN 1-56098-848-7) within reach. To get a sense of how Gledhill’s
book compares with those two, I checked a sample of 100 words, prefixes, and
suffixes from Gledhill against Brown and Stearn. I chose words and elements
not based on other plant names or on names of places or people (e.g., from Gledhill:
absinthoides wormwoodlike, aberdeenensis from Aberdeen, South Africa, and aaronis
for the prophet Aaron). Of the 100, I found 84 in Brown, 53 in Stearn, 43 in
both, and 4 in neither.
On most pages in Gledhill, plant names and epithets derived from names of people,
places, or other plants well outnumber those based on morphological descriptors.
In that regard, Gledhill’s glossary is a welcome and useful companion
to those of Brown and Stearn and provides in one handy volume information not
conveniently found elsewhere.
The following verbatim examples from Gledhill’s glossary may provide
a sense of its substance [numbers in brackets were added by me
to indicate how many times an epithet was found as a basionym
in International Plant Names Index (http://www.ipni.org:80/ipni/plantnamesearchpage.do)]:
Abobra from a Brazilian vernacular name
aboriginorum indigenous, of the original inhabitants, aborigines,
aboriginum [2]
abro-, abros soft, delicate, σβρος
Abronia Delicate, σβρος (the involucre)
abrotanifolius -a -um wormwood-leaved, botanical Latin from σβροτανον
with folium [28]
abyssicolus -a -um inhabiting ravines or chasms, late Latin, abyssus-colus,
from Greek α_βψσσος,
without bottom [2]
abyssinicus -a -um of Abyssinia, Abyssinian (now Ethiopia) [100+]
Acacallis etymology uncertain
achy-, achyro- chaffy-, chaff-like-,
αχυρον, αχυρο_,
αχυ~
acraeus -a -um of windy places, of hilltops,
ακραης [5]
acreus -a -um of high places, of the
summit, the highest, ακρα [0]
Anemone a name used by Theophrastus.
Possibly a corruption of Naaman, a Semitic name for Adonis, from
whose blood sprung the crimson-flowered Anemone coronaria
arnicoides resembling Arnica, αρνακις_οειδης
[7]
As seen in examples above, some epithets included by Gledhill are seldom used,
and “acreus -a -um” appears never to have been used, as
an epithet at species or infraspecies rank. Perhaps such entries should have
been omitted to make room for others (e.g., deltata, -um, -us). Other
quibbles include treatment of glabratus and glabrescens as
equivalents (ditto for orbicularis/orbiculatus) and defining of disciformis
as “having radiate flowers.”
Syntactical anomalies (e.g., “am” for “is” in discussion
of objects and subjects in sentence structure, p. 19; doubtless the result of
“corrections” made by a grammar algorithm) and typographic errors
(e.g., mixed Roman and Italic letters in affinis, p. 38) appear to
be few and far between. There is an error at “Franklinia Benjamin
Franklin (1706--90) inventor of the lightning conductor and President of the
USA.” First (1985) and second (1989) editions lack Franklin, third (2002)
has Franklin an “American President;” perhaps a fifth edition will
be justified. Still, overall, the pros well outweigh the cons and I am pleased
to welcome this book into my library.
- John L. Strother, University Herbarium, University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720-2465
Cycads of Vietnam by Roy Osborne,
Ken D. Hill, Hiep T. Nguyen, and Loc Phan Ke. 2007
ISBN 978-0-646-46445-9 (Hardcover). 116 pages.
Published by Roy Osborne, Brisbane, Australia and Wynand van Eeden,
Cape Town, South Africa.
Cycads are among the oldest extant lineages of plants with a fossil record extending back 200 million years. However, far from being “living fossils”, cycads are a successful and adaptable group of plants that have managed to flourish and diversify in tropical regions throughout the world. The living cycads are composed of three (some authors recognize four) familes: Cycadaceae, Zamiaceae, and Stangeriaceae. All cycads are essentially tropical or subtropical in distribution.
Southeast Asia, and Vietnam in particular, is rich in Cycas (Cycadaceae) species. Cycads of Vietnam is an elaboration and expansion of the recent revision of the Vietnamese species of Cycas (Hill et al., 2004). Hill et al. (2004) recognized 24 species of Cycas in Vietnam (not including two Chinese species occurring close to Vietnam’s borders) while Osborne et al. describe 26 species.
Cycads of Vietnam begins with an introductory chapter including a very brief history of Vietnam, overviews of its geography, climate, flora and fauna, and ecology and vegetation types. Chapter 2 focuses on the biology of cycads and particularly on the family Cycadaceae (the only one present in Vietnam.) Also included here are discussions on the origins of the genus Cycas, the history of cycad discovery in Vietnam, vegetative morphology, reproductive features, pollination and seed dispersal, the occurrence of hybridization (at least three known hybrids), toxicity, ethnobotany, conservation, and cultivation. The section on cultivation is very brief and serves mostly to show that cycads are generally quite amenable to cultivation. However, this is tied the previous section on conservation. Cycads are very popular as cultivated plants both within and outside of Vietnam. This has put tremendous pressure on cycad populations that are often exploited by commercial collectors. All Vietnamese cycad species have been given provisional conservation status, but only one has been listed in the IUCN 1997 Red List. Several of the Vietnamese species occur within protected areas.
Chapter 3 consists solely of the key to Cycas species in Vietnam. This is followed by the 26 species descriptions in Chapter 4. Each description consists of color photographs, a distribution map, a list of synonyms, description of the vegetative and reproductive part, distinguishing features, notes about the species’ discovery and the citation of the type description, etymology of the species’ name, the conservation status, and known hybrids. Many species have illustrations reproduced from the original species descriptions. The species descriptions are arranged by sections (Stangerioides, Indosinensis, and Cycas). The descriptions are followed by three appendices: Vietnamese place names, herbarium acronyms, and cycad-oriented websites and societies. The literature cited and glossary of terms rounds out the book.
Cycads of Vietnam is an informative book about a biologically rich but somewhat unheralded part of the world. The authors expanded on both their recent species descriptions (Hill et al., 2004) and the Cycas treatments by Whitelock (2002). The copious illustrations and photographs help put faces with the names of these Asian cycad species. The individual location maps are particularly informative and missing form earlier treatments (i.e., Whitelock 2002 and Jones 1993). Overall, I would recommend Cycads of Vietnam to anyone with a strong interest in cycads, and particularly in the genus Cycas. While limited to Vietnam, it is nice to see the detailed treatments that are not possible with a broader geographic treatment.
References
Hill, K.D., H. T. Nguyen, and P. K. Loc. 2004. The genus Cycas (Cycadaceae) in Vietnam. The Botanical Review 70(2): 134-193.
Jones, D. L. 1993. Cycads of the world. Smithsonian Institution Press, USA.
Whitelock, L. M. 2002. The Cycads. Timber Press, Portland, OR.
- James P. Riser II
Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens.
Chapman, Lynne, Noelene Drage, Di Durston, Jenny Jones, Hillary
Merrifield, Billy West. 2008
ISBN 9781877058677 (Cloth US$59.95) 240pp Rosenberg Publishing
Pty Ltd., P.O. Box 6125, Dural Delivery Centre NSW 2158, Australia.
As the first book in over 100 years devoted solely to tea roses, this potentially
can fill a very large niche, because the climatic conditions suitable for tea
rose growth are found right round the world, in some of the world’s most
populous areas, including portions of India and China. Climate in southern California
or around the Mediterranean is likewise suitable for roses that need no rest.
Also with changing fashions and the rise of the “English roses”
there is a return to appreciation of prolific roses not intended for competitive
exhibition.
The authors, who have been working together for over a decade as the ‘Tea
rose group’ of the larger Heritage rose group in Australia, are from the
region around Perth in western Australia. Rarely is a book written by committee
so successful. Somehow they have managed to combine their expertise in photography,
writing, historical research, languages, horticulture and botany (not to mention
manuscript editing and book composition) to good effect.
As the dust jacket says, Tea Roses is “lavishly illustrated with colour
photographs and historical plates...” I estimate there are over 300 photos,
with 3/4 taken by the authors, at least one of whom must be an expert photographer.
Many of the remainder are of historical documents, including rose illustrations
from botanical magazines of the 19th century. The dust jacket photos are truly
striking, with ‘Comtesse de Labarthe’ (a.k.a. Countess Bertha) on
the front and ‘Anna Olivier’ on the back.
The rose known as ‘Anna Olivier’ in Australia presents many of
the usual complications that the authors found in working with tea roses. They
note that in some European gardens, a soft yellow rose, known as’ Etiole
de Lyon’ in Australia, is called ‘Anna Olivier’. Also, ‘Anna
Olivier’ gave rise to an unstable, reverting sport, ‘Lady Roberts’
(Cant 1902). The authors provide a photo of their rose which bears an excellent
resemblance in both form and color to a chromolithograph from The Garden (1891).
Such confusion as to identity is typical of the subject.
The rose ‘Comtesse de LaBarthe’ is commonly known as ‘Duchesse
de Brabant’ in the U.S. As the old name Countess Bertha persists from
older gardens in Australia, this is likely a Comtesse, not a Duchesse. For this
and every rose grown by one or more of the authors, there is both a well-written
narrative description and a summary table of distinguishing features. This provides
detailed information on inflorescence and pedicel, bud shape and color, sepals,
flower size and shape, petal shape and texture, stamens and carpels, receptable
and hip, fragrance, leaves and bush habit. The total number of tea roses now
in commerce in Australia is something under 100; the authors grow all these
and more, many found in old gardens and cemeteries.
During the 1960s systematic efforts to recover tea roses were begun in England
(Appendix 3), and somewhat later in Australia about half a dozen folks began
serious preservation work. This bit of history is well documented here, and
laid the basis for this book. Two other appendices indicate roses bred in Australia
(about 30), and those whose sale was ended in 1921 as a result of a nurseryman’s
meeting.
The authors tell a good story of the origins, rise and fall of tea roses in
about 40 pages. Another 20 pages are devoted to their culture and a general
description including their growth habits, cold tolerance, flowering habits,
flower form and colors. A full 130 pages are used for individual entries on
close to 100 firmly known, and some unique but unidentified Cvs. Despite extensive
searching of catalogs and other sources, it is unlikely that even another 100
names will be reliably fixed to unique plants (my opinion). There is simply
too little description in most sources. This is frustrating to collectors, but
of less consequence to those who simply enjoy roses and have a suitable climate
to grow these older kinds.
The first of the six appendices reproduces Jules Gravereaux’s color chart
of 1902 (from his catalog). It helps one understand how color names were used
in the late 19th century, when tea rose breeding was at its peak. Appendix 4
documents the history of roses featured in this book, including which catalogs
listed it when, how it was reintroduced to commerce, likely synonyms and misnomers.
This is a marvelous spreadsheet for historians. There is also a three page glossary
for technical terms, and a list of abbreviations for the Appendix 4 table.
This book is very well produced, with clear font (Goudy Old Style), perfect
color registration and rendering, nice layout and good binding. The eight page
index has about 650 entries and the 6 page bibliography has around 300 references,
including books, letters and papers, journal articles and a couple of websites.
It may not be exhaustive but it is quite extensive, delving into many obscure
corners for pertinent information. We may never see it’s like again.
- Lawrence Davis, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.
Genetic Glass Ceilings: Transgenics for
Crop Biodiversity. Gressel, Jonathan. 2008
ISBN 978-0-8018-8719-2 (Cloth US$65.00) 461 pp. The Johns
Hopkins University Press. 2715 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD
21218.
When universities are beginning to form “Innovation Centers for Crop
Design”, as ours is doing, we need to take a look at what has become of
plant breeding. That is the intent of this volume. The “Genetic Glass
Ceilings” referred to in the title are of course the invisible mechanisms
that prevent “Jack and the Beanstalk” from coming true. Taking a
broad look at the whole question of “Transgenics for Crop Diversity”,
Jonathan Gressel brings to bear over 40 years of experience as a plant physiologist
and genetic engineer. Gressel argues persuasively that in order to have the
quantum jump in productivity essential to make healthy, renewable, sustainable
food and fiber available to the whole world, we must use transgenics. Hence
the subtitle..
Forty years ago, genetic engineering was unknown. Professor Gressel grew with
the field, making contributions in a broad range of areas along the way. One
of his most recent edited volumes deals with ferality in crop plants, the likelihood
that crops run wild and turn into weeds. Questions such as, ‘What are
the odds that we turn clover into kudzu?’ or ‘Can we use the vigor
of kudzu for producing biomass?’ lie at the heart of many fears and fantasies
of biotechnology and transgenics. This volume addresses those fears, brings
realism to the fantasies, and emphasizes the growing recognition that most of
our limited agronomic base (maize, wheat, rice, soybean) may soon reach its
glass ceiling. We must consider other crops for other places that are not part
of the huge international trade economy, not linked to the price of oil the
way the big four are.
This is a serious book, covering a very challenging range of issues. Gressel
does not hesitate to identify what he sees as problems outside the organism,
such as crop subsidies that distort markets. He is also willing to present some
notions that are novel or that go against the mainstream of agronomic thinking.
So maybe the glass ceilings are not just inherent genetic limitations of the
crops themselves, but rather are to some extent glass ceilings of the kind usually
thought of by sociologists. Either way, we need to break through, soon.
Gressel’s book is divided in to roughly equal halves, first dealing globally
with the situation, and second using about 15 case studies to indicate potentials
and pitfalls. Although the earliest scientific citation I noted here is from
1965, a very substantial majority of the references are from this past decade.
That is as it should be in a rapidly moving field, when only 1200 of the many
thousands can be directly cited. Those 1200 provide a useful entry into the
remainder of the literature.
The general case for plant biodiversity is provided in an extensive forward
by Klaus Ammann, and a much shorter argument for crop biodiversity is provided
in the first chapter by Gressel. After thoroughly stating the case that a glass
ceiling has been reached in the genetic potential of major crops, the author
describes the tools for transgenic development, the biosafety considerations,
the places where one needs to go through the ceiling and some specific instances
where transgenics have already been used to make major advances in productivity
or quality. Insect resistance in grains and virus resistance in papaya re noteworthy
examples. Insect resistance has both the direct benefit of decreased predation
on the crop, and secondarily by decreasing mycotoxin production in damaged seed.
And as an incidental incentive to use, it actually lowers insecticide application
substantially, decreasing both direct costs and labor costs.
The issue of biosafety is addressed extensively in a chapter over 65 pages
long. Only the chapter on tools, at 30 pages, approaches this level of detail.
Enhancing total biomass yield through engineering of photosynthesis or carbon
partitioning is not a focus of this book. Crop diversity and more effective
exploitation of available production potential in many smaller niches is the
theme. Case studies are used as the basis for this discussion.
Some of the crops considered as good candidates for transgenic improvement
while maintaining crop diversity, naturally enough, are not among the top 25
in current production. For instance, tef is considered as a crop for dry extremes
and buckwheat (pictured on the dust jacket in full bloom), is considered for
poor cold extremes. Constraints on and problems in sorghum, millet, safflower,
lathyrus, tomatoes, olives, and orchids are examined. For most of these, overall
biomass yield is not addressed. Rather, the specific needs of the crop, such
as reduced allegenicity in olive pollen, or removal of a specific amino acid
in lathyrus, is treated.
Gressel makes his case clearly with much creativity. He has obviously thought
a long time about the issues at hand. He is a strong advocate of transgenics,
well aware of potential hazards, but not prone to sentimentality about saving
insect-plagued or mycotoxin-contaminated land race seeds. This book would serve
as a good basis for a serious course in agronomy departments around the world.
It should also be of interest to crop breeders wherever they are located, for
its wealth of thought-provoking ideas.
- Lawrence Davis, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.
Plants and Vegetation: Origins, Processes,
Consequences. Keddy, Paul A. 2008.
ISBN 978-0-521-86480-0 (Cloth US$75.00) 683pp. . Cambridge
University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013.
This remarkable text presents plant ecology with an approach that is both intellectually
rigorous and stimulating. Certainly other plant ecology books have covered the
subject matter, and indeed this is not the only one you will ever need, but
few will be as delightful and enlightening. Its noteworthy quality is the author’s
deliberate decision to not just write a reference book, but to present an engaging
conversation with the reader. While rich in detail and examples, the emphasis
is less on dogma and memorization and more about exploring. Overall, Plants
and Vegetation is lively and interdisciplinary, and is most useful for immersing
students into the discovery of plant ecology. In this review I will first present
three principal merits this text has over most ecology text books, then describe
the content, and close with some of the negative aspects of the book.
The first strength of the book is that every topic is presented not only in
theory but through dozens of field experiments. Most often the field studies
(mostly from primary literature of the past four decades) are presented in brief,
but some include experimental design, controls and treatments, scope, and caveats.
Occasionally a long excerpt from the original paper is given to provide insight
into scientific argument. In some cases the author outlines an approach to take,
such as how to design herbivore exclusion experiments, or the difficulties of
studying plant-fungal interactions. Therefore the reader is immersed not only
in details but in the scientific process, a rare feat for a textbook. The scope
of these examples is marvelous: hundreds of plant species and genera and many
habitats around the world, including oddities like epiphytes, parasites, and
carnivorous plants. Extreme, unique, and exotic environments are also frequently
drawn from, including South African desert, the Guyana Highlands of South America,
arctic alpine environments, and peat bogs. The end result is an exposure to
real ecological phenomena which highlight key trends and processes.
A second major strength is that the author does not stop at description but
often presents several alternative explanations for these trends, and emphasizes
that our explorations are still ongoing. The author repeatedly notes areas for
which evidence is weak, what the difficulties are in studying them, and notes
“the fine opportunities available for (the student) who is willing to
learn”. The author poses challenges to the reader, such as to apply a
concept to local plant communities the reader may be familiar with. He advises
“Consider that it may be most profitable to focus your attention on an
area that is little known, rather than looking for problems that are currently
popular.” Further, he provides criticism of some of the historical trends
in ecology, and cautions against what he calls an “intellectual coitus
interruptus.” Because of this angle, and the wealth of examples, advice,
and opportunities, the book may be useful not only to newer students but seasoned
scientists who wish to expand or enliven their research program.
A third, and perhaps the most striking, strength is the author’s extensive
forays into history of science (Raunkiaer’s exploration of plant communities),
biography (Fritz Haber of the Haber Bosch process), early scientific writings
(Antoine Lavoisier), philosophy (Plato), scientific argument (Clements and Gleason)
and world history (deforestation of the Mediterranean region). While the longer
asides are neatly set in Boxes, the immersion in tangential subjects is unavoidable,
which is sure to spark mixed reactions from readers. This interdisciplinary
approach is more extensive than any textbook I have read, and is a balance that
some would say is sorely needed in modern science, while other readers will
revolt against it. To me, the broad mindedness of this book encouraged an application
of scientific processes to the real world, an understanding of non-scientific
principles, and an appreciation of the countless efforts that came before us
and on whose knowledge we build. This would be useful to any student of ecological
processes (plant or animal), conservation biology, or ecosystem management,
as well as a casual reader interested in the interface between science, the
liberal arts, and larger societal issues.
As to content, the subtitle- Origins, Processes and Consequences- is accurate.
After a review of classification systems (Chapter 2), the bulk of the book devotes
one chapter each to: resources, stress, competition, disturbance, herbivory,
mutualism, succession, community structure, diversity, and conservation. Some
chapters are stronger than others. For example, Chapter 3, on resources, is
a nicely balanced examination of resource distributions, gradients, limitations,
and fluctuations. The author has an admirable knowledge of evolutionary biology
and inorganic chemistry, which are referred to throughout. In keeping with the
author’s vast knowledge base and brief historical digressions, I learned
of Darwin’s 1881 treatise on earthworms and of the Roman siege and conquest
of Carthage after which the soil was plowed with salt. Chapter 4, on stress,
is systematic, clear, and also satisfying. The author balances the discussions
in long (evolutionary adaptations) and short time scales (impacts on community
composition). However, the reader will still feel shortchanged- the first major
shortcoming of the book is paucity of individual plant physiological responses
to stress, to which the author offers further suggested reading.
Chapters 5 through 8 turn the same systematic approach to competition, disturbance,
herbivory and mutualism (and commensalism). The author presents definitions
of each, acknowledges alternate definitions and understandings, gives useful
and engaging examples, synthesizes material from previous chapters, and shows
how simpler ideas and models have been built upon. The author frequently iterates
the connections between separate chapters, for example, the relationship between
the resources available (Chapter 3) and succession and community structure (Chapters
8 and 9). I especially compliment the author on examining these processes across
a broad spectrum of area and intensity, comparing different sites and processes
at different scales, including “gradients of topography, flooding, fire-frequency,
soil fertility, and altitude.” As with much of the book, the author is
honest in presenting various and competing views on a subject and some of the
difficulties scientists confront when examining these topics. The second shortcoming
of the book comes in Chapters 7 and 8, where coevolution, pollination and seed
dispersal are all noted as principal aspects of plant ecology, but are then
given scant attention. Decomposition and molecular ecology were also hardly
mentioned. Ideally, each of these topics warrants another chapter all to itself.
The reader will have to turn to other texts for a more complete exploration.
(The author does list key references in each chapter for further reading.)
Chapters 9-12 emphasize change, community structure, and conservation biology.
Chapter 9 concerns time, particularly succession, and is an excellent synthesis
of the previous 4 chapters. However, the sections on the origin of angiosperms
and continental drift seemed out of place, and were too brief to be satisfying.
Similarly, the section on glaciations cycles were too simply presented, overlooking
recent findings in molecular ecology. Chapter 10 presents the useful tools of
classification and ordination. His objective “was not to authorize you
to carry out different kinds of gradient analysis, but rather to equip you to
understand research papers… (and) to advise those of you who use such
tools to do so wisely”. The final 100 pages, on diversity and conservation,
include descriptions of causes and consequences of diversity, tools for measuring
diversity, detailed critiques of specific case studies, and rigorous rather
than vague guidelines for conservation management. The stories of the cypress
swamps in the Louisiana delta and the tortoise species in the Galapagos Islands
are quite poignant and contemporary.
Other weaknesses of the book are quite apparent, but none are serious enough
to counterbalance the usefulness of the book. The lack of color photographs
was at first a disappointment, especially considering the great variety of habitats
and species presented in the book. However the figures in this book are very
practical, and are meant to reinforce, explain, or expand on the text, not to
be a pretty picture. The use of multicolor, 3D images in most modern textbooks
provides an attractive picture but can be both distracting and confusing. On
the whole, graphs, diagrams, or sketches are abundant, simple, and informative
(and are often adapted from primary literature). There is no glossary, and definitions
are few, which is also a deviation from many textbooks. However, explanations
of processes are rich, detailed, and cohesive, and topics are tied together
so well that a motivated student will rarely if ever flounder. It must be noted
that by no means is this book a modeling book. The few presentations of ecological
models (i.e. herbivory, models of succession, and cost-benefit models) are easy
to understand, but are generally somewhat superficial. A final weakness is the
largely unnecessary Chapter 1, a cursory and disjointed summary of the origins
of life, the endosymbiotic theory, colonization of land, and atmospheric changes.
These seem unnecessary, as this is taught in high school, and I believe any
reader will be quite bored.
Overall, this is a surprisingly easy to read, remarkably thorough, and balanced
textbook. The author has focused less on exhausting every aspect of plant ecology
and more on creating a critical, engaging, multi-disciplinary, and pragmatic
approach to some major aspects. Further, the author shows a great appreciation
for older literature and for the benefits of studying novel and unique habitats,
rather than just those in Europe and North America. The ultimate goal of the
book seems to be to instruct and to train plant ecologists, and in this it will
be successful. Plants and Vegetation is therefore an excellent teaching tool,
but not an exhaustive reference, for plant ecology.
- Sean Hoban, University of Notre Dame.
Burdock. By Janet Malcolm. 2008.
ISBN 978-0-300-12861-1 (US $65.00 cloth), Yale University
Press: New Haven, CT. 64 pages, 27 color illustrations.
This book review is written from two frames of reference. My first impression
was based on an initial perspective of the book as it stands alone. The second
was a more informed view after attending an exhibit of Richard Avedon’s
photographs, who was one of the main inspirations for the author. In both cases
the book left me disappointed.
When I first received the book I opened it with anticipation, expecting from
its title a compendium of the interesting history and facts about Burdock (Arctium
spp.). I’ve taught about Burdock to both General Botany and Plant Physiology
students (the inspiration for Velcro, its purported medicinal value, etc.).
I’ve cleaned Burdock burrs out of my dog’s hair and my hiking boot
laces. When I first saw the book title I thought, “What a great idea for
someone to write a book about this common but interesting plant!” Leafing
through the book what I found was a series of untitled full-page photographs
of single Burdock leaves, cut and standing in a vial of water against a blank
background. “What is this?” I thought. Backtracking and reading
the two page introduction, I learned that the author had spent three summers
in the Berkshires (rural area in Western Massachusetts) and while out walking
each day she would collect roadside Burdock leaves to photograph. She set up
a small attic studio in her house and would put the leaves in water to let them
revive and “come to attention and into their own” (Introduction,
p. 2) before recording them in a photograph. She chose leaves that showed the
ravages of time; ragged, dirty, insect-damaged, which to her were more interesting
than young undamaged leaves. Her inspirations for the format were Richard Avedon’s
(1923-2004) portraits of people and illustrations from old herbals. I was familiar
with some of Avedon’s iconic images and with herbals, so with a more informed
eye I looked through the photographs again. Still a series of leaves in vials.
Nice green color, some interesting patterns from disease or insects, but the
photographs still did not stir me. And I was not at all reminded of illustrations
from herbals.
Thinking that I was just lacking in art criticism experience, I took the book
along with me when I went to visit some friends in the greater Washington, D.C.,
area because one of them is a professional artist and art teacher (Marc Robarge).
His opinion concurred with mine. Then he said, “You might want to visit
the Corcoran Gallery, they have a large Avedon exhibit going on right now.”
What a great coincidence! I spent several wonderful hours wandering the galleries
of the exhibit “Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power” (running Sept
13, 2008-Jan 25, 2009). It was inspiring, moving, and amazing, due to the impressive
power of the photographs, the people and events that were documented through
a long time period, and the scale of the photographs. “The Chicago Seven”
took up a whole wall in a gallery, greater-than-life size. Charlie Chaplin,
on the eve of being exiled from the United States, displayed a comic bravado
that did not conceal his bitterness, captured in turbulent detail by Avedon.
I tried to imagine a Malcolm Burdock leaf photograph alongside Avedon’s
“Roger Baldwin, founder, American Civil Liberties Union, New York”
(1976). It would be completely out of its league.
Both artists framed their subjects in a similar way. Against a blank white
background the subject of the photograph is decontextualized, that is, removed
from any context that would influence our interpretation of the image and that
leaves the subject under stark scrutiny. In the case of Avedon’s photographs,
the subjects are humans so we have an innate sense of scale and relationship
to the emotional cues on their faces. In the photographs of Burdock leaves,
we are observing “otherness” and most people lack any familiarity
with the subject that would evoke emotion (except familiarity with the burrs,
which are not in the photographs).
My artist friend Marc commented that he had no idea that the leaves were up
to two feet long until he read the Introduction – all sense of scale is
missing in the photographs. There are several other major differences between
Malcolm’s Burdock photographs and Avedon’s human photographs. Malcolm
uses soft color while most of Avedon’s portraits are rich black-and-white.
Her photographs have a shallow depth-of-field rendering parts of the leaf out
of focus, while Avedon’s are sharply focused images. Granted, his earlier
work did have soft-focused edges, but most of his career he used a large-format
camera and every detail down to skin pores, wrinkles, and fabric weave is crystal-clear.
However, the greatest difference between the two is in motivation and the choice
of subject. Avedon documented people and events that are meaningful to a wide
audience, even out of context. Malcolm published a photographic journal of her
three summers in the Berkshires collecting Burdock leaves. I’m glad she
enjoyed herself, but I doubt many if any readers will find much meaning in the
leaf portraits lacking the context of Malcolm’s own experience with them.
There are a few leaf images that are esthetically pleasing enough to imagine
hanging on the wall, but none are better than average professional close-up
photographs. Aside from the content, the quality of the book is excellent with
heavy pages and a firm binding.
- Carolyn Wetzel, Ph.D., Department of Biological Sciences,
Smith College, Northampton, MA 0106
Books Received for Review
If you would like to review a book or books for PSB, the easiest
way to do so is to: highlight and copy the book details, click
on the Reviewer Requested
link to the right of the book's details and paste the information
into the email form that pops up. Remember to include your name,
University/Department, all of your mailing details and the date
by which the book will be reviewed (15 January, 15 April, 15 July
or 15 October). Alternatively, email, write or call the Editor,
including the details noted aboe, as soon as you notice the book
of interest in this list because they go quickly! - Editor (psb@botany.org,
Ph 620-341-5605)
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If a Tree Falls: Rediscovering the Great American
Chestnut. Buege, Douglas J. 2008. SBN13: 978-1-4363-1609-5
(Cloth US$29.99) 186 pp. Xlibris Corporation, International
Plaza II, Suite 410, Philadelphia, PA 19113-1513
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Micropropagation of Orchids, Volumes I and II.
Arditti, Joseph. 2008. ISBN 1405160888 (Cloth, US$450.00)
1522 pp. Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA
02148-5020 |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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Plant Taxonomy: The Systematic Evaluation of Comparative
Data, 2nd ed. Stuessy, Tod F. 2008. ISBN 978-0-231-14712-5
(Cloth US$ 99.50) 568 pp. Columbia University Press, 61 West
62nd Street, New York, NY 10023 |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession.
Gollner, Adam Leith. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7432-9694-6 (Cloth US$25.00)
279 pp. Scribner, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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The Biology of Deserts. Ward, David. 2008.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-921147-0 (paper US$55.00) 304 pp. Oxford
University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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Bryophyte Biology, 2nd ed. Goffinet, Bernard
and A. Jonathan Shaw (eds). 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-69322-6 (Paper
US$70.00) 565 pp. Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of
the Americas, New York, NY 10013 |
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Flora of China ILLUSTRATIONS, Volume (12) twelve,
Hippocastancaceae through Theaceae. Flora of China
Editorial Committee. 2008. ISBN: 978-1-930723-79-5 (Cloth
US$125.00) 487 + i-xii pages. Missouri Botanical Garden Press,
P.O. Box, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 |
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Flora of China ILLUSTRATIONS, Volume (13) thirteen,
Clusiaceae through Araliaceae. Flora of China Editorial
Committee 2008. ISBN: 978-1-930723-80-1 (Cloth US$125.00)
492 + i-xii pages. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, P.O. Box,
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 |
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Flora of China,Text Volume (7) Seven, Menispermaceae
through Capparaceae. Flora of China Editorial Committee.
2008. ISBN: 978-1-930723-81-8 (Cloth US$125.00) 500 + i-xii
pages. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, P.O. Box, St. Louis,
MO 63166-0299 |
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Grasses and Grassland Ecology. Gibson,
David J. 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0-19-852919-4 (paper US$70.00)
320 pp. Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York,
NY 10016 |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Illustrated Dictionary
of Orchid Genera. Alrich, Peggy and Wesley Higgins.
2008. ISBN 978-0-8014-4737-2 (Cloth, US$49.95) 482pp. Comstock
Publishing Associates, Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850 |
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Orchids of Western Australia. Brown, Andrew,
Pat Dundas, Kingsley Dixon & Stephen Hopper. 2008. (Cloth
US$80.00) 421 pp. University of Western Australia Press, Crawley,
Western Australia 6009 |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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Major Evolutionary Transitions in Flowering Plant
Reproduction. Barrett, Spencer C.H. (ed). 2008. ISBN
0-226-03816-2. (Paper US$30.00) 216 pp. The University of
Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60637 |
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The Molecular Organography of Plants. Cronk,
Quentin. 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0-19-955036-4 (Paper US$70.00)
288 pp. Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York,
NY 10016 |
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Moss Flora of China, English Version, Volume 7,
Amblystegiaceae—Plagiotheciaceae. Hu Ren-liang,
Wang You-fang, and Marshall R. Crosby (eds.) 2008. ISBN 978-1-930723-77-1(Cloth
US$85) Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, MO |
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Plains Apache Ethnobotany. Jordan, Julia
A. 2008. ISBN 978-0-8061-3968-5 (Cloth US$34.95) 240 pp. University
of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069 |
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Plant Nematodes: Methodology, Morphology, Systematics,
Biology and Ecology. Khan, Mujeebur Rahman. 2008.
ISBN 978-1-57808-533-0 (Cloth US$69.00) 360 pp. Science Publishers
Inc., c/o Enfield Distribution Co., 234 May Street, P.O. Box
699. Enfield, NH 03748 |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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Seedling Ecology and Evolution. Leck, Mary
Allessio, V. Thomas Parker and Robert L. Simpson (eds) 2008.
ISBN 97-0-521-69466-7 (Paper US$70.00) 514 pp. Cambridge University
Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013 |
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Woody Cut Stems for Growers and Florists: Production
and Post-Harvest Handling of Branches for Flowers, Fruit,
and Foliage. Greer, Lane and John M. Dole. 2009.
ISBN 978-0-88192-892-1 (Cloth $39.95) 552 pp. Timber Press,
Inc., 133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450, Portland, OR 97204-3527 |
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Plants of Bastar Chhattisgarh: A Field Guide,
Ramnath, Madhu 2006. 568 pp. The Netherlands Committee for
the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN-NL) |
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Mushrooms as Functional Foods. Cheung,
Pater C.K. (ed.) 2008. ISBN 0-470-05406-2 (Cloth US$90.00)
259 pp John Wiley & Sons, 111 River Street, Hoboken, NY 07030.
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The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern
Vocation. Shapin, Steven. 2008. ISBN 0-226-75024-8
(Cloth US$29.00) 468 pp. The University of Chicago Press,
1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60637-2954
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OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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A Flora of the Liverworts and Hornworts of New Zealand,
Volume 1. Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri
Botanical Garden 110. John J. & David Glenny.
2008. ISBN 978-1-930723-67-2 (Cloth US$105.00) 897 pp. Missouri
Botanical Garden Press, P.O. Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299
USA
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OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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Intracellular Signaling in Plants. Annual
Plant Reviews, Volume 33. Yang, Zhenbiao (ed). ISBN 1-4054-6002-0
(Cloth US$225.00) 430 pp. Wiley-Blackwell, 2121 State Avenue,
Ames, Iowa, 50014-8300.
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Lichen Biology, 2nd ed. Nash, Thomas H.
III (ed). 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-69216-8 (Paper US$70.00) 486
pp. Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, NY 10013.
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Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens.
Chapman, Lynne, Noelene Drage, Di Durston, Jenny Jones, Hillary
Merrifield, Billy West. 2008 (ISBN 9781877058677 (Cloth US$59.95)
240pp Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd., P.O. Box 6125, Dural
Delivery Centre NSW 2158, Australia. |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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Fungal Pathogenesis in Plant and Crops: Molecular
Biology and Host Defense Mechanisms, 2nd ed. Vidhyasekaran,
P. 2008. (Cloth US$169.95) 509 pp. CRC Press, Taylor &
Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca
Raton, FL 33487-2742. |
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An Introduction to Plant Breeding. Brown,
Jack and Peter Caligari. 2008. ISBN 978-1-4051-3344-9 (Paper
US$80.00) 209 pp. Blackwell Publishing, 2121 State Avenue,
Ames, Iowa 50014-8300. |
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Plant Bioinformatics: Methods and Protocols.
Edwards, David (ed.) 2007. ISBN 978-1-588-29-653-5 (Cloth
US$139.00) 552 pp. The Humana Press, Inc., 999 Riverview Drive,
Suite 208, Totowa, New Jersey 07512. |
OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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Seed to Elegance: Kentia Palms of Norfolk Island,
South Pacific. Williams, Kevin. 2007. ISBN 978-0-9775121-1-9
(Paper US$24.95) 72 pp. Studio Monarch, Norfolk Island, 2899
South Pacific. |
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Plant-Bacteria Interactions: Strategies and Techniques
to Promote Plant Growth. Ahmad, Iqbal, John Pichtel
and Shamsul Hayat (eds.) 2008. ISBN 3-527-31901-5 (Cloth US$195.00)
310 pp. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.
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Rare Wildflowers of Kentucky. Barnes, Thomas
G., Deborah White & Marc Evans. 2008. ISBN 978-0-8131-2496-4
(Cloth US$39.95) 204 pp. The University Press of Kentucky,
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008.
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OUT FOR
REVIEW |
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- GO GREEN – THINK BALANCE – BE
SUSTAINABLE