- Email: [email protected]
More salep, please
332
Forum
TRENDS in Plant Science Vol.6 No.7 July 2001
Book Review
More salep, please Genera Orchidacearum. (Vol. 2) Orchidioideae (Part 1) Edited by Alec M. Pridgeon, Phillip J. Cribb, Mark W. Chase and Finn N. Rasmussen, Oxford University Press, 2001. £75.00 hbk (xix + 416 pages) ISBN 0 19 850710 0
This is the second volume in a projected series on genera of the Orchidaceae, compiled from the contributions of several different authors (27 altogether in this one). It is edited by members of staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London and the Botanical Institute at Copenhagen. The first volume was published in November 1999. This second volume deals in part with the subfamily Orchidoideae, the remaining four tribes (and subfamily Vanilloideae) are scheduled to be published in volume 3. Later volumes will be devoted to the Epidendroideae. The series has a fairly rigid structure, each genus presented with notes on synonymy, name derivation, description, distribution, palynology, ecology, pollination, uses and cultivation. This is not always followed, the genera of the tribe Diseae, for example, are without specific information on use or cultivation. The tribes are introduced briefly, and here an opportunity to provide some synthesis for the general reader and student new to orchids is missed. However, there is an interesting general section on the origin and biogeography of the Orchidaceae and some fascinating comparative reviews of chromosome number, karyotype evolution and phylogenetics in the tribe Orchideae. I would like to have seen more synthesizing sections like these, especially as some room could have been made for them. All the material on cultivation aspects for ‘hobbyists’seems to me to be out of place. I doubt any of them will want to purchase these volumes, and most of the information is available to them already. In addition, the material on uses serves only to show that the family is of limited use. Two thirds of the
genera are listed as not having any use, 16% have only ornamental use (although several genera considered as having no use are subsequently provided with cultivation notes) and only 15% have some food or medicinal value (mostly as ‘salep’). For an explanation of salep we are referred (but only under Barlia) to Anacamptis, for which no uses are recorded. In fact, the interesting information about salep can be found under Orchis. It is a highly nourishing, easily digested, soothing food extracted from the tubers. All use information could have been written in comparatively few lines in an overview at the start. There is no glossary with this volume and therefore much of the terminology used will only be understandable to the specialist. The clear, well drawn line drawings that illustrate the text are of single representatives of each of the genera, which means that we have one species for Chamorchis (a monospecific genus) and one for Orchis (of over 30 species), and no single comparative plate to illustrate morphological variation across the tribe. This highlights for me one of the real disappointments in this series and a weakness in comparison with other texts on the family. The extensive number of contributors and the formalized structure have come at the cost of a personal overview of character evolution and phylogenetics such as exists in Dressler1 and Arditti2. The synthesizing work of these pioneering orchidologists (and even their own personal viewpoints) in discussing aspects such as variation in life form, morphological features, epiphytism, nutrition, cytology and physiology are extremely informative, satisfying to read and a stimulus for further research. It is still to these that I would first turn for background information and direct young researchers beginning a career in orchidology. In recent years, taxonomic research has been in decline. The new molecular systematics, based on DNA sequences, has produced exciting discoveries and encouraged researchers in phylogenetic systematics. But increasingly the generated phylogenies are being allowed to drive taxonomic rearrangements, even though we will never know the true phylogeny of a group of organisms. Whether phenetic and cladistic information can be combined together into a single classification is still being debated and, for some, cladistics is a taxonomic side issue that has not proved its
value3. The relationship between a phylogenetic tree and a classification is perhaps the issue that still divides practising botanists4. Genera Orchidacearum is a project much influenced by evidence from recent molecular phylogenies in the family. Leaving aside the arguments about methodology and sampling of taxa, the new insights gained are already modifying our views of generic delimitation and relationships. What is certain is that this series will need rapid revision when more data becomes available and after a thorough reworking of character variation has been accomplished. According to the dust jacket, ‘the aim of Genera Orchidacearum is to produce a robust and natural classification of the orchids, which has eluded plant scientists and orchid enthusiasts for years.’But today we are a long way from being able to realise this goal and, because of recent new information on the phylogeny of the genera derived from DNA studies, our generic and suprageneric concepts of orchids are changing rapidly. This point is well made in the preface. What is exciting for orchidologists is the opportunity that the new molecular data offer to re-interpret character variation and evolutionary relationships within the family and to give new insights into the factors that have generated the remarkable diversity of form, function and interactions with other organisms (notably animals and fungi) that we see today. The family is large and accounts for almost 10% of all flowering plants, so the principles elucidated and knowledge gained will surely tell us much about angiosperm evolution generally. The definitive work is still elusive and what we need now is one that satisfies our curiosity, shows us the gaps and spurs us on to do the research. Give us more ‘intellectual’salep. Chris Wilcock Dept of Plant and Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, Cruickshank Building, St Machar Drive, Aberdeen, UK AB24 3UU. e-mail: [email protected] References 1 Dressler, R.L. (1993) Phylogeny and Classification of the Orchid Family, Timber Press 2 Arditti, J. (1992) Fundamentals of Orchid Biology, John Wiley & Sons 3 Sneath, P.H.A. (1995) 30 years of numerical taxonomy, Syst. Biol. 44, 281–298 4 Stevens, P.F. (2000) Botanical Systematics 1950– 2000: change, progress, or both? Taxon 49, 635–659
http://plants.trends.com 1360-1385/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S1360-1385(01)01986-0
Forum
TRENDS in Plant Science Vol.6 No.7 July 2001
Book Review
More salep, please Genera Orchidacearum. (Vol. 2) Orchidioideae (Part 1) Edited by Alec M. Pridgeon, Phillip J. Cribb, Mark W. Chase and Finn N. Rasmussen, Oxford University Press, 2001. £75.00 hbk (xix + 416 pages) ISBN 0 19 850710 0
This is the second volume in a projected series on genera of the Orchidaceae, compiled from the contributions of several different authors (27 altogether in this one). It is edited by members of staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London and the Botanical Institute at Copenhagen. The first volume was published in November 1999. This second volume deals in part with the subfamily Orchidoideae, the remaining four tribes (and subfamily Vanilloideae) are scheduled to be published in volume 3. Later volumes will be devoted to the Epidendroideae. The series has a fairly rigid structure, each genus presented with notes on synonymy, name derivation, description, distribution, palynology, ecology, pollination, uses and cultivation. This is not always followed, the genera of the tribe Diseae, for example, are without specific information on use or cultivation. The tribes are introduced briefly, and here an opportunity to provide some synthesis for the general reader and student new to orchids is missed. However, there is an interesting general section on the origin and biogeography of the Orchidaceae and some fascinating comparative reviews of chromosome number, karyotype evolution and phylogenetics in the tribe Orchideae. I would like to have seen more synthesizing sections like these, especially as some room could have been made for them. All the material on cultivation aspects for ‘hobbyists’seems to me to be out of place. I doubt any of them will want to purchase these volumes, and most of the information is available to them already. In addition, the material on uses serves only to show that the family is of limited use. Two thirds of the
genera are listed as not having any use, 16% have only ornamental use (although several genera considered as having no use are subsequently provided with cultivation notes) and only 15% have some food or medicinal value (mostly as ‘salep’). For an explanation of salep we are referred (but only under Barlia) to Anacamptis, for which no uses are recorded. In fact, the interesting information about salep can be found under Orchis. It is a highly nourishing, easily digested, soothing food extracted from the tubers. All use information could have been written in comparatively few lines in an overview at the start. There is no glossary with this volume and therefore much of the terminology used will only be understandable to the specialist. The clear, well drawn line drawings that illustrate the text are of single representatives of each of the genera, which means that we have one species for Chamorchis (a monospecific genus) and one for Orchis (of over 30 species), and no single comparative plate to illustrate morphological variation across the tribe. This highlights for me one of the real disappointments in this series and a weakness in comparison with other texts on the family. The extensive number of contributors and the formalized structure have come at the cost of a personal overview of character evolution and phylogenetics such as exists in Dressler1 and Arditti2. The synthesizing work of these pioneering orchidologists (and even their own personal viewpoints) in discussing aspects such as variation in life form, morphological features, epiphytism, nutrition, cytology and physiology are extremely informative, satisfying to read and a stimulus for further research. It is still to these that I would first turn for background information and direct young researchers beginning a career in orchidology. In recent years, taxonomic research has been in decline. The new molecular systematics, based on DNA sequences, has produced exciting discoveries and encouraged researchers in phylogenetic systematics. But increasingly the generated phylogenies are being allowed to drive taxonomic rearrangements, even though we will never know the true phylogeny of a group of organisms. Whether phenetic and cladistic information can be combined together into a single classification is still being debated and, for some, cladistics is a taxonomic side issue that has not proved its
value3. The relationship between a phylogenetic tree and a classification is perhaps the issue that still divides practising botanists4. Genera Orchidacearum is a project much influenced by evidence from recent molecular phylogenies in the family. Leaving aside the arguments about methodology and sampling of taxa, the new insights gained are already modifying our views of generic delimitation and relationships. What is certain is that this series will need rapid revision when more data becomes available and after a thorough reworking of character variation has been accomplished. According to the dust jacket, ‘the aim of Genera Orchidacearum is to produce a robust and natural classification of the orchids, which has eluded plant scientists and orchid enthusiasts for years.’But today we are a long way from being able to realise this goal and, because of recent new information on the phylogeny of the genera derived from DNA studies, our generic and suprageneric concepts of orchids are changing rapidly. This point is well made in the preface. What is exciting for orchidologists is the opportunity that the new molecular data offer to re-interpret character variation and evolutionary relationships within the family and to give new insights into the factors that have generated the remarkable diversity of form, function and interactions with other organisms (notably animals and fungi) that we see today. The family is large and accounts for almost 10% of all flowering plants, so the principles elucidated and knowledge gained will surely tell us much about angiosperm evolution generally. The definitive work is still elusive and what we need now is one that satisfies our curiosity, shows us the gaps and spurs us on to do the research. Give us more ‘intellectual’salep. Chris Wilcock Dept of Plant and Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, Cruickshank Building, St Machar Drive, Aberdeen, UK AB24 3UU. e-mail: [email protected] References 1 Dressler, R.L. (1993) Phylogeny and Classification of the Orchid Family, Timber Press 2 Arditti, J. (1992) Fundamentals of Orchid Biology, John Wiley & Sons 3 Sneath, P.H.A. (1995) 30 years of numerical taxonomy, Syst. Biol. 44, 281–298 4 Stevens, P.F. (2000) Botanical Systematics 1950– 2000: change, progress, or both? Taxon 49, 635–659
http://plants.trends.com 1360-1385/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S1360-1385(01)01986-0