OPTIMA Newsletter 41(2)
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* NOTICES OF PUBLICATIONSF by WERNER GREUTER General Topics One of the salient traits of the volume is good and plentiful illustration; another is the extent to which aspects of the past are built 1. Juan Antonio DEVESA ALCARAZ & into it, on two quite different levels. First, José Sebastián CARRIÓN GARCÍA – there is a substantial, well researched and Las plantas con flor. Apuntes sobre su well written chapter on the history of angio- origen, clasificación y diversidad. – sperm classification, from classical Greece Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, 2012 to the present day. Second, the fossil record (ISBN 978-84-9927-108-8). 522 pages, is presented in unusual and commendable numerous colour illustrations, drawings, detail, to serve as a complement and coun- graphs, tables; hard cover. terpoint to the molecular studies on which the adopted classification has been built – A university teacher who wants to intro- which, to no one’s wonder, is APG III. Let duce students to the diversity of flowering me add, to the credit of the authors, that they plants, and has the ambition to present the do not fail to mention – dispassionately even information in the most modern classifica- – the more popular and strikingly plausible tory frame available, faces a problem. Clas- former families that fell victim to merger, sifications keep changing so rapidly that it such as Dipsacaceae and Valerianaceae now has become all but impossible for textbook sunk in Caprifoliaceae. writers to keep up. Every now and then a I miss but one relevant aspect, which volunteer emerges to fill the growing gap has been totally neglected. No reference and write a new manual. This has now hap- whatever is made to the rules that govern the pened for the benefit of Spanish teachers. choice and use of names. In one place I This book is written for use, and will be found the International Code of Nomencla- found useful, by teachers and students alike ture mentioned under its now obsolete “bo- – those at a Spanish university, that is. Latin tanical” title, but it is not even cited among Americans will likely be frustrated when the literature. Students will wonder where they fail to find their native families treated, the ranks and rank-denoting terminations as the book, basically, limits itself to fami- come from, and why “Comelínidas”, desig- lies indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula – nating an informal grouping of orders, is in but then, let New World botanists write their Spanish but the similar looking Magnoliidae own textbooks. (a subclass, equivalent to angiosperms) in * Please send all items for announcement or review directly to the column editor: Prof. W. Greuter, Herbarium Mediterraneum, Orto Botanico, Via Lincoln 2/A, I-90133 Palermo. 2013 OPTIMA Newsletter No. 41 (1) Publications Latin. Mind you, I am not blaming the au- fore, and its mention is so discretely hidden thors for their choice of names: that criti- in the text that I all but missed it – which cism, for which there is justification in would have been a real pity. many cases, must be addressed to Chase & The authors are keen and knowledge- Reveal who cared for the nomenclature used able amateur botanists, and it would be in- in APG III. Devesa and Carrión just copied appropriate to judge their booklet severely. to the letter what the said authors propose – Take it for what it is, forgetting the unfortu- so slavishly that even an obvious typo such nate subtitle, and enjoy it. Also, take heed of as Ginkgooidae (for Ginkgoidae) went un- their concluding statement, following after corrected. W.G. the chapter on cyclamen growing: “there is no need to collect [cyclamens] from the wild as it is very easy to obtain a wide range from Dicotyledons reputable nurseries”. W.G. 2. Peter MOORE & Melvyn JOPE – The 3. Rosa Maria LO PRESTI – Geological Cyclamen of Greece. A guide to the vs. climatological diversification in species of cyclamen growing in Greece. the Mediterranean area: Micro- and – The Cyclamen Society, London, 2011 macroevolutionary approaches in An- (ISBN 978-0-9537526-3-8). 40 pages, themis L. (Compositae, Anthemideae). 57 colour photographs, map; paper. – Logos, Berlin, 2010 (ISBN 978-3- 8325-2688-7). [3] + 182 pages, 2 draw- This pamphlet has been highly praised ings, maps and graphs (some in colour), for the beauty and quality of its illustration, tables; paper. a praise well deserved. I am less favourably impressed by the text. Probably I was misled Lo Presti’s PhD thesis is devoted in its by the subtitle and expected too much. This entirety to the study of systematics and is in no way a “guide to species”, it is but a evolution of the genus Anthemis, of which pleasant and stimulating companion on a in its time her tutor, Christoph Oberprieler, spring or autumn tour of Greece. There is no had made the North African representatives clear structure, not even a consistent attempt the subject of his own thesis. Much has at defining or comparing taxa, let alone a changed since then, for the better or worse: formal treatment of them or an identification it is no longer accepted that you write your key. Indication of distribution is so vague as dissertation just on the alpha-taxonomy of a to be useless for practical purposes. Some group, not even when anatomy and micro- photographs show the variation of leaf pat- morphology are part of your arsenal. You tern and shape – valuable information in- have to use DNA sequencing, AFLP and lots deed, but unsuited to distinguish taxa: rather, of computer-based numerical analyses as it might in some cases shed doubt on their your weaponry. This is what Lo Presti was distinctness. An interesting feature men- asked to do, and did with great skill and tioned in the text and illustrated is the dif- excellent success. ferent way in which the pedicels (“stems”) There are some genuinely remarkable of autumn-flowering species coil after flow- aspects to this thesis. Contrary to her boss ering: basipetally from the top in Cyclamen and mentor she did not confine herself to a hederifolium but acropetally from the base modest if highly critical geographical subset or middle portion in C. graecum (and pre- of species but covered the genus as a whole sumably, to judge from the picture, C. con- – or rather: two genera, as her work con- fusum). I had not noticed this difference be- firmed the recently reasserted distinction of (2) OPTIMA Newsletter No. 41 2013 Publications Cota from Anthemis. While her revision from literature, for all of which she procured cannot claim to be a monograph, at least it the bioclimatic parameters for numerical includes a synopsis in its own right: an processing (I will spare you the details). enumeration of all recognised species and Also, perhaps chaperoned by her brother subspecies of both genera (as Appendix 1), who is a computing expert, she familiarised and even, for Anthemis alone, a dichotomic herself with the full range of algorithms that key for their identification (App. 6). are coming into use for cladistic and phy- Apart from the Appendices, general in- logeographical analyses. And I could go on troduction and discussion, summary, and and on. comprehensive reference list, the thesis con- What, then, are the results? Personally I sists of three chapters conceived as inde- still consider phylogeography, and espe- pendent units, all of which have also been cially time-scaled cladograms or chrono- published as research papers in international grams, as sort of a black art rather than sci- journals: (1) Lo Presti & al.: A molecular ence – often interesting, thought-provoking phylogeny and revised classification of the even, but not to be firmly relied upon. In Mediterranean genus Anthemis s.l. (Compo- that I may be prejudiced, and I don’t mind sitae, Anthemideae) based on three molecu- your thinking so. This being said, Lo lar markers and micromorphological charac- Presti’s opinions are plausible enough, and ters (in Taxon 59: 1441-1456. 2010); (2) Lo presented with the appropriate caution. The Presti & Oberprieler: Evolutionary history, cladograms she generated raise as many new biogeography and eco-climatological differ- questions as they help solve, which is not entiation of the genus Anthemis L. (Compo- unusual; but they do help clarify the sitae, Anthemideae) in the circum-Mediter- boundaries between Anthemis and Cota, the ranean area (in J. Biogeogr. 36: 1313-1332. molecular results being backed by fruit 2009); and (3) Lo Presti & Oberprieler: The anatomy. A certain number of Anthemis central Mediterranean as a phytodiversity species are now to be placed in Cota, and hotchpotch: phylogeographical patterns of two that had been recently transferred to the Anthemis secundiramea group (Compo- Cota (mea culpa!) wander back to Anthemis. sitae, Anthemideae) across the Sicilian The five (not six!) necessary new combina- Channel (in J. Biogeogr. 38: 1109-1124. tions, listed here as such, were first made in 2011). The above-mentioned synopsis and Taxon (59: 1455. 8 Oct 2010; the Disserta- key, however, can only be found in the the- tion’s date of effective publication is 22 sis itself. November – Oberprieler in litt.). Another The amount of data Lo Presti has used convincing conclusion, well supported by and produced is all but incredible, especially morphology, is the segregation of four Cau- if you think of the time and labour involved. casian Anthemis species as a new, independ- According to her criteria, Anthemis consists ent genus – here left unnamed but, in Taxon of 154 species (one unnamed) and 12 addi- (l.c.), described as Archanthemis. tional subspecies, Cota of 37 species plus The text is concise, elegantly written in one subspecies. Of no less than ¾ of these impeccable English.