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George RAT. 1999. Vegetable seed production. 2nd edn. 336 pp. Wallingford, Oxon: CABI Publishing. £49.95 (hardback).
Annals of Botany 85: 577±578, 2000 All articles available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on
Book Reviews doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1105 Anderson RC, Fralish JS, Baskin JM (eds.) 1999. Savannas, barrens, and rock outcrop plant communities of North America. 470 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. £70 (hardback). In my youth I met a woman in YaoundeÂ, the capital of Cameroon. She was attractive, I was single, we went to a bar. As things moved along I asked her where she was from. `Guess!' she replied. I took a sip of my beer and thought about her excellent French and the accent I couldn't quite place. I decided to gamble and said `Well you're obviously North American', hoping she was from Quebec. She grinned and said, `Well done, I'm from Mexico'. I don't remember her name but I will never forget what she taught me that night: Mexico is part of North America. Savannas, barrens, and rock outcrop plant communities of North America is not about the `North America' of the woman I met in Cameroon, nor is it the `North America' of the North American Free Trade Association. This book is about vegetation of the continental United States and Canada. The glaring lack of information on these vegetation types in Mexico is disturbing given the importance of these plant communities in Mexico and the continuity with the vegetation of the southern US states. In addition there is very little reference to any studies of similar vegetation on other continents. These complaints aside, this multi-authored book is very good. The 26 chapters by a total of 47 authors cover a wide range of approaches. Even without Mexico and Alaska, a lot of ground is covered: from Florida Scrub to Subarctic Lichen Woodlands. The studies, although generally descriptive, vary in their emphasis and style. The real strength of this book is the distillation of the combined experience of those 47 authors. It is an excellent source book for anybody wanting to ®nd out about these plant communities in `North America'. For anybody studying or managing these vegetation types it will be an invaluable reference book. Researchers working in other areas of the world, even if they do not ®nd their own work cited, will ®nd many interesting ideas and a wealth of information. The articles are all well written and overall the editing is excellent. The conference at which these papers were presented was held in October 1995. I received my review copy four years later. This may explain the polished ®nish to the book. It is amply supplied with black and white photographs and maps. The photographs are generally of good quality, although some are obviously reproductions from high contrast colour slides. There does seem to be an anomaly in that most scientists take photographs using colour slide ®lm but most published photographs appear in black and white with the attendant loss of quality in conversion from colour slide to monochrome print. Humour me with one ¯ight of fancy, consider what Ansel Adams could have produced to illustrate the chapter on `Ponderosa and Limber Pine Woodlands' . . . Back to this book: the photographs are especially well supported by
0305-7364/00/040577+02 $35.00/00
descriptive text. In these descriptions some authors include an indication of scale which is most helpful. The maps on the other hand, could have done with a ®rmer editorial hand: some are boxed, some not; most have an arrow to the north, some not; and very few have any indication of scale. Only a native of Wisconsin would make much sense of Figure 21.3. A book as diverse as this one really requires an eective index to allow it to be used to its full potential. At ®rst sight the indexes look good: one for plant names; one for animal names; and a topic index. Whoever wrote the plant index knew their job. Dierent authors have used dierent vernacular names in the text and they appear under the correct Latin name in the index. Well done. The real test of this book, however, must be the topic index. When I ®rst looked at the book I read the chapter on `Subarctic Lichen Woodlands' which I thought was a good example of the rich tapestry of information which makes this book so good. Later, sitting down to write this review I thought I would cite it. Using the topic index, I searched for `trapping', `fur trade' and `Hudson Bay Company', all of which were mentioned in the text. I found none of them. Further investigation revealed that this index is consistently inadequate. For example, although headings in the book include `role of humans' ( p. 133), `human use' ( p. 334), `human threats to the savanna' ( p. 335), there is nothing under `humans' or `people' in the index. I even went to Homo sapiens in the animal index and did not ®nd anything. `Rare species' as a sub-entry under `granite barrens' contains four page numbersÐnone of which occur under the full entry for `rare species'. This is not good enough. Look up `shale' and you get a single page number. `Blue Ridge shale barrens' and `Braillier shales' appear separately in the index but are not cross referenced under `shale'. Unfortunately the topic index is not up to the complexity and wealth of information in this volume. For £70 I expect a better index. In spite of the poor index and slightly inaccurate title I thoroughly recommend this book to anybody interested in the vegetation of North America and to those studying similar vegetation in other parts of the world. Congratulations to the editors on making so much information available in this single volume.
David Harris # 2000 Annals of Botany Company
doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1111 George RAT. 1999. Vegetable seed production. 2nd edn. 336 pp. Wallingford, Oxon: CABI Publishing. £49.95 (hardback). This book can be divided into two sections. The ®rst, comprising approximately 40% of the text, is made up of six chapters dealing with general aspects of seed production, with particular reference to vegetable seeds. These chapters range from `Organisation', to `Principles of Seed Production' and `Seed Handling, Quality Control and Distribution'. The second
# 2000 Annals of Botany Company
578
Book Reviews
section is made up of ten chapters, each dealing with seed production in a speci®c crop family. The ®rst section of the book provides an overview of the range of subjects of importance to the seed industry. The diversity of subjects, ranging from seed certi®cation to cultivar maintenance, seed industry development, modern methods of cultivar identi®cation (DNA pro®ling, electrophoresis, image analysis), seed drying and harvesting methods, means that many are not covered in depth. The greatest emphasis tends to be placed on practical aspects of seed production itself. However, recent references are given to review articles that would introduce the interested reader to other topics in greater depth. References are also given for readers interested in the physiology of the vegetable crop and of seed development and maturation, which are not covered within the scope of the book. The later chapters give considerable detail of seed production for dierent crop species. Their presentation is not in a form suitable for general reading, but these chapters act more as a source of reference information for those particularly interested, or involved, in seed production. There have been few major changes in the principles and practice of seed production since the publication of the ®rst edition of this book. This is re¯ected in only small changes in the new edition. However, this edition has introduced recent developments in the seed industry such as methods of chemical treatment, hydration treatments, organic seed production and new methods of cultivar identi®cation. In addition there is greater reference to the seed industry in the developing world. In this context it might have been appropriate to give some emphasis to the problems associated with seed supply to smallscale subsistence farmers, and their dependency on farmersaved seed. A further omission lies at the opposite extreme of the seed industry, namely that no impression is given of the dynamic nature of ownership of the seed companies that make up the industry. Even though it is dicult to keep pace with these changes, some comment on the movement of ownership to the multinationals might have been appropriate. The contents of the book are, on the whole, clearly and logically presented. However, I would have found the presentation easier to follow if the headings and sub-headings were dierentiated in some way other than a slight dierence in size. The illustrations are appropriate and, for those not familiar with seed production, can be as informative as the text. From this point of view, I was disappointed to see that some illustrations used in the ®rst edition, particularly in the later chapters on speci®c crops, were omitted. These helped to relieve, as well as illustrate, the extensive detail given in these chapters. The subject of this book is very specialized and as such will have a relatively limited market. However, it is useful as an introduction to seed production for undergraduate students and as a reference for both postgraduates in seed technology and people active in seed production projects in both the developed and developing world.
Alison A. Powell # 2000 Annals of Botany Company
doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1110 Smallwood MF, Calvert CM, Bowles DJ, eds. 1999. Plant responses to environmental stress. 224 pp. Oxford: Bios Scienti®c Publishers. £70 (hardback). This book is based on papers given at the ®rst annual symposium of the Plant Protein Club in September 1998 at the University of York (UK). The aim was to consider recent advances in the understanding of fundamental aspects of plant responses to abiotic stress. The Plant Protein Club aims to bring together industrialists and academics for their mutual bene®t and one stated purpose of the book is to emphasize the relevance of the research to industrial applications. While the book has certainly succeeded in covering most of the relevant topics that are currently receiving research eort, almost none of the authors explicitly address the industrial applications of their research in any detail. However, readers should be able to assess for themselves how near (or more usually how far) we are from using current information to produce more stressresistant crop plants. The book contains 28 short chapters, averaging about six pages of text each. The chapters are grouped into seven sections: calcium as a second messenger in abiotic stress signalling (one chapter); UV light stress (two chapters); reactive oxygen species in abiotic stress responses ( ®ve chapters); temperature stress (eight chapters); drought stress ( ®ve chapters); salinity stress (three chapters) and general stress-related gene products ( four chapters). Each of the chapters provides a short, and usually crisp, overview. They mostly focus on signal transduction systems and genes whose expression is induced by the various stresses. The extension of these molecular studies to a consideration of their relevance to whole plant responses is not covered by many of the authors. In general it is probably premature to do so, but the chapter by McKersie et al. provides a useful example of how overexpression of superoxide dismutase does not have predictable results in ®eld-grown plants. A signi®cant proportion of the chapters mention antioxidants, a fact that emphasizes their role in a wide range of stresses. The book covers the `big three' abiotic stresses (cold, drought and high salinity) and the authors are all active researchers in this ®eld. I would recommend the book to anyone wishing to obtain an overview of current research into the eect of stress on plants at the cellular level, and the signal transduction systems that might be involved in detecting and responding to these stresses. It will be useful for research workers wishing to have an overview of topics outside their own chosen stress. Some of the chapters will be accessible to ®nal year undergraduates. This book is de®nitely a useful purchase for libraries but could also be bought by those with a general interest in plant stress responses.
Nicholas Smirno # 2000 Annals of Botany Company
Book Reviews doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1105 Anderson RC, Fralish JS, Baskin JM (eds.) 1999. Savannas, barrens, and rock outcrop plant communities of North America. 470 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. £70 (hardback). In my youth I met a woman in YaoundeÂ, the capital of Cameroon. She was attractive, I was single, we went to a bar. As things moved along I asked her where she was from. `Guess!' she replied. I took a sip of my beer and thought about her excellent French and the accent I couldn't quite place. I decided to gamble and said `Well you're obviously North American', hoping she was from Quebec. She grinned and said, `Well done, I'm from Mexico'. I don't remember her name but I will never forget what she taught me that night: Mexico is part of North America. Savannas, barrens, and rock outcrop plant communities of North America is not about the `North America' of the woman I met in Cameroon, nor is it the `North America' of the North American Free Trade Association. This book is about vegetation of the continental United States and Canada. The glaring lack of information on these vegetation types in Mexico is disturbing given the importance of these plant communities in Mexico and the continuity with the vegetation of the southern US states. In addition there is very little reference to any studies of similar vegetation on other continents. These complaints aside, this multi-authored book is very good. The 26 chapters by a total of 47 authors cover a wide range of approaches. Even without Mexico and Alaska, a lot of ground is covered: from Florida Scrub to Subarctic Lichen Woodlands. The studies, although generally descriptive, vary in their emphasis and style. The real strength of this book is the distillation of the combined experience of those 47 authors. It is an excellent source book for anybody wanting to ®nd out about these plant communities in `North America'. For anybody studying or managing these vegetation types it will be an invaluable reference book. Researchers working in other areas of the world, even if they do not ®nd their own work cited, will ®nd many interesting ideas and a wealth of information. The articles are all well written and overall the editing is excellent. The conference at which these papers were presented was held in October 1995. I received my review copy four years later. This may explain the polished ®nish to the book. It is amply supplied with black and white photographs and maps. The photographs are generally of good quality, although some are obviously reproductions from high contrast colour slides. There does seem to be an anomaly in that most scientists take photographs using colour slide ®lm but most published photographs appear in black and white with the attendant loss of quality in conversion from colour slide to monochrome print. Humour me with one ¯ight of fancy, consider what Ansel Adams could have produced to illustrate the chapter on `Ponderosa and Limber Pine Woodlands' . . . Back to this book: the photographs are especially well supported by
0305-7364/00/040577+02 $35.00/00
descriptive text. In these descriptions some authors include an indication of scale which is most helpful. The maps on the other hand, could have done with a ®rmer editorial hand: some are boxed, some not; most have an arrow to the north, some not; and very few have any indication of scale. Only a native of Wisconsin would make much sense of Figure 21.3. A book as diverse as this one really requires an eective index to allow it to be used to its full potential. At ®rst sight the indexes look good: one for plant names; one for animal names; and a topic index. Whoever wrote the plant index knew their job. Dierent authors have used dierent vernacular names in the text and they appear under the correct Latin name in the index. Well done. The real test of this book, however, must be the topic index. When I ®rst looked at the book I read the chapter on `Subarctic Lichen Woodlands' which I thought was a good example of the rich tapestry of information which makes this book so good. Later, sitting down to write this review I thought I would cite it. Using the topic index, I searched for `trapping', `fur trade' and `Hudson Bay Company', all of which were mentioned in the text. I found none of them. Further investigation revealed that this index is consistently inadequate. For example, although headings in the book include `role of humans' ( p. 133), `human use' ( p. 334), `human threats to the savanna' ( p. 335), there is nothing under `humans' or `people' in the index. I even went to Homo sapiens in the animal index and did not ®nd anything. `Rare species' as a sub-entry under `granite barrens' contains four page numbersÐnone of which occur under the full entry for `rare species'. This is not good enough. Look up `shale' and you get a single page number. `Blue Ridge shale barrens' and `Braillier shales' appear separately in the index but are not cross referenced under `shale'. Unfortunately the topic index is not up to the complexity and wealth of information in this volume. For £70 I expect a better index. In spite of the poor index and slightly inaccurate title I thoroughly recommend this book to anybody interested in the vegetation of North America and to those studying similar vegetation in other parts of the world. Congratulations to the editors on making so much information available in this single volume.
David Harris # 2000 Annals of Botany Company
doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1111 George RAT. 1999. Vegetable seed production. 2nd edn. 336 pp. Wallingford, Oxon: CABI Publishing. £49.95 (hardback). This book can be divided into two sections. The ®rst, comprising approximately 40% of the text, is made up of six chapters dealing with general aspects of seed production, with particular reference to vegetable seeds. These chapters range from `Organisation', to `Principles of Seed Production' and `Seed Handling, Quality Control and Distribution'. The second
# 2000 Annals of Botany Company
578
Book Reviews
section is made up of ten chapters, each dealing with seed production in a speci®c crop family. The ®rst section of the book provides an overview of the range of subjects of importance to the seed industry. The diversity of subjects, ranging from seed certi®cation to cultivar maintenance, seed industry development, modern methods of cultivar identi®cation (DNA pro®ling, electrophoresis, image analysis), seed drying and harvesting methods, means that many are not covered in depth. The greatest emphasis tends to be placed on practical aspects of seed production itself. However, recent references are given to review articles that would introduce the interested reader to other topics in greater depth. References are also given for readers interested in the physiology of the vegetable crop and of seed development and maturation, which are not covered within the scope of the book. The later chapters give considerable detail of seed production for dierent crop species. Their presentation is not in a form suitable for general reading, but these chapters act more as a source of reference information for those particularly interested, or involved, in seed production. There have been few major changes in the principles and practice of seed production since the publication of the ®rst edition of this book. This is re¯ected in only small changes in the new edition. However, this edition has introduced recent developments in the seed industry such as methods of chemical treatment, hydration treatments, organic seed production and new methods of cultivar identi®cation. In addition there is greater reference to the seed industry in the developing world. In this context it might have been appropriate to give some emphasis to the problems associated with seed supply to smallscale subsistence farmers, and their dependency on farmersaved seed. A further omission lies at the opposite extreme of the seed industry, namely that no impression is given of the dynamic nature of ownership of the seed companies that make up the industry. Even though it is dicult to keep pace with these changes, some comment on the movement of ownership to the multinationals might have been appropriate. The contents of the book are, on the whole, clearly and logically presented. However, I would have found the presentation easier to follow if the headings and sub-headings were dierentiated in some way other than a slight dierence in size. The illustrations are appropriate and, for those not familiar with seed production, can be as informative as the text. From this point of view, I was disappointed to see that some illustrations used in the ®rst edition, particularly in the later chapters on speci®c crops, were omitted. These helped to relieve, as well as illustrate, the extensive detail given in these chapters. The subject of this book is very specialized and as such will have a relatively limited market. However, it is useful as an introduction to seed production for undergraduate students and as a reference for both postgraduates in seed technology and people active in seed production projects in both the developed and developing world.
Alison A. Powell # 2000 Annals of Botany Company
doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1110 Smallwood MF, Calvert CM, Bowles DJ, eds. 1999. Plant responses to environmental stress. 224 pp. Oxford: Bios Scienti®c Publishers. £70 (hardback). This book is based on papers given at the ®rst annual symposium of the Plant Protein Club in September 1998 at the University of York (UK). The aim was to consider recent advances in the understanding of fundamental aspects of plant responses to abiotic stress. The Plant Protein Club aims to bring together industrialists and academics for their mutual bene®t and one stated purpose of the book is to emphasize the relevance of the research to industrial applications. While the book has certainly succeeded in covering most of the relevant topics that are currently receiving research eort, almost none of the authors explicitly address the industrial applications of their research in any detail. However, readers should be able to assess for themselves how near (or more usually how far) we are from using current information to produce more stressresistant crop plants. The book contains 28 short chapters, averaging about six pages of text each. The chapters are grouped into seven sections: calcium as a second messenger in abiotic stress signalling (one chapter); UV light stress (two chapters); reactive oxygen species in abiotic stress responses ( ®ve chapters); temperature stress (eight chapters); drought stress ( ®ve chapters); salinity stress (three chapters) and general stress-related gene products ( four chapters). Each of the chapters provides a short, and usually crisp, overview. They mostly focus on signal transduction systems and genes whose expression is induced by the various stresses. The extension of these molecular studies to a consideration of their relevance to whole plant responses is not covered by many of the authors. In general it is probably premature to do so, but the chapter by McKersie et al. provides a useful example of how overexpression of superoxide dismutase does not have predictable results in ®eld-grown plants. A signi®cant proportion of the chapters mention antioxidants, a fact that emphasizes their role in a wide range of stresses. The book covers the `big three' abiotic stresses (cold, drought and high salinity) and the authors are all active researchers in this ®eld. I would recommend the book to anyone wishing to obtain an overview of current research into the eect of stress on plants at the cellular level, and the signal transduction systems that might be involved in detecting and responding to these stresses. It will be useful for research workers wishing to have an overview of topics outside their own chosen stress. Some of the chapters will be accessible to ®nal year undergraduates. This book is de®nitely a useful purchase for libraries but could also be bought by those with a general interest in plant stress responses.
Nicholas Smirno # 2000 Annals of Botany Company