| BEN |
| BOTANICAL ELECTRONIC NEWS |
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| ISSN 1188-603X |
| No. 272 August 20, 2001 | aceska@freenet.victoria.tc.ca | Victoria, B.C. |
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I'm a graduate student at the University of Victoria looking for distribution information for Sagittaria latifolia and S. cuneata in interior British Columbia. In addition to performing a replanting study for Sagittaria in an interior freshwater marsh, I'm hoping to gain a better understanding of the current distribution of the plant in B.C. I've obtained herbarium records for the plant in the province, but any supplemental information about its distribution in B.C. and observations about populations would be most appreciated. I'd be happy to provide more details about my research if interested.
Thanks in advance.
Those interested in owning a copy can simply send a cheque for $22.00 ($20.00 for the book + $2.00 for postage) payable to Patrick Williston to P.O. Box 4979, Smithers, B.C., Canada V0J 2N0.
| "'Moonwort madness' may be regarded by some psychiatrists as the ultimate in lunacy. Nevertheless, each year we learned about new patients who have been diagnosed as having the disease." Herb & Florence Wagner, "The Fiddlehead Forum" Volume 25, Number 4, September-October 1998. |
Patrick Williston's inquisitive mind held a genetic predisposition for "moonwort madness". This disease realised its acute form when Patrick participated in one of the last of Prof. Herb Wagner's moonwort forays, in July 1999 to SE British Columbia. Shortly after he presented a poster on "The Ophioglossaceae of British Columbia" (with Paula Bartemucci) at the Botany 2000 meeting in Portland, Oregon (accompanied with a 19-page treatment of Botrychium s.l. and Ophioglossum in British Columbia). In winter 2001 he spent a week at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he studied Botrychium collections of Drs. Herb and Florence Wagner.
In "The Botrychiaceae of Alberta" Patrick Williston treats Botrychium s.l. as three separate genera, Botrychium, Sceptridium, and Botrypus and as a separate family segregated from the family Ophioglossaceae. He provides an identification key, descriptions, line drawings (all except two drawn by Patrick) and maps of Alberta distributions for 16 species and 1 hybrid that occur in Alberta with 2 other species that may be expected to occur there.
The introductory chapter contains a paragraph on moonwort morphology, the history of Botrychium research, and a summary of the habitats and Notes on troublesome determinations." Three "essays" cover "The life history of Botrychiaceae," "W.H. and F.S. Wagner," and "Fossils of the Botrychiaceae discovered in Alberta." The bibliography section is a unique collection of more than 200 references on Botrychiaceae worldwide. Four colour plates provides photographs of all taxa treated in the booklet.
"That is an amazing little book," wrote Don Britton, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, "I cannot see much to complain about!" Neither can I. Congratulations, Patrick!
Flora Europaea was the result of a monumental project that started in 1956. The first volume was published in 1964, and the fifth, final volume appeared in 1980. The first volume has been revised and the revised edition appeared in 1993. The Editorial Committee decided that it would not be feasible or desirable to continue to revise volumes 2-5 and this meant that no more revisions have been undertaken or are planned for Flora Europaea.
This CD-ROM contains the full text of all the five volumes of the Flora Europaea (Volume 1 in its revised version), with all the appendages and supplementary texts. Added electronic index and powerful search function make the navigation through the text quick and effortless. Also added was an interactive key that starts from the major plant groups (Trachaeophyta, Pteridophyta, Gymnosperms, and Angiosperms) and after a successful identification of the family, ends up at the relevant page of the Flora. Then you have to switch to the genus and species keys as they were published in the Flora. A nifty feature is a quick access to the Glossary. Definitions of botanical terms can be called up directly, from descriptions in the text or from any part of the interactive key.
This CD-ROM is an excellent reference, not only for the European botanists, but also for the whole Northern Hemisphere. The essential taxonomic treatment of European plants is set into elegant, powerful and easy to use software, and I cannot praise this CD-ROM edition enough.
I always call for proletarian prices, but the cost of this CD-ROM is not too high, when you realize that it costs less than three published volumes.
A Site Licence can be obtained for multiple users, LAN for GBP 700.00, WAN for GBP 1,000.00. For more information on Site Licence contact Jane Crossland [jcrossland@cambridge.org], or (North America) Laraine Karl [lkarl@cup.org].
System requirements: IBM PC or compatible, minimum 80486 processor, 4 Mb free RAM, VGA monitor or better set to 800 x 600 pixels resolution, WINDOWS 9x operating system. WINDOWS compatible CD-ROM drive and Microsoft CD-ROM extensions (MSCDEX) version 2.0 or higher. The content of the CD-ROM can be copied to hard disk. This option requires at least 60 Mb of free space.
This is a comprehensive glossary of botanical terms that provides definitions of over 2,400 terms used to describe vascular plants (46 pages) and in 128 plates illustrates many of them. The illustrations form the core of this publication and they are arranged according to the thematic groups (e.g., roots, seeds, leaves, etc., and special families).
The Cambridge Glossary is more complete than my favourite "How to identify plants" by Harrington and Durrell (first published by Sage Books, Denver, CO in 1957) but lacks many specialised terms (such as phyllopodic/aphyllopodic or androgynous/gynaecandrous in sedges) that are listed in the "Plant identification terminology: an illustrated glossary" by Harris and Harris (first published by Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, UT in 1994). The advantage of The Cambridge Glossary is that the illustrations show morphological features in their broader context. I like that the authors used Eichlerian floral diagrams for several families and I regret that they did not give more of them. I could see several inaccuracies in a few terms (e.g., pedicel is not only a stalk of a single flower, but also - in grasses - the stalk of a spikelet), but in spite of these, this publication is a good addition to the reference library of everybody who wants or needs to understand plant descriptive terminology.
The Nevada Rare Plant Atlas is a new publication of the Nevada Natural Heritage Program (NNHP), with major funding provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It provides Nevada distribution maps and fact sheets for 249 of the 297 plants and lichens currently on the Sensitive and Watch lists of NNHP, with more to be added or revised as future time and funding permit.
The fact sheets include information on conservation and population status, known threats and impacts, inventory effort, land management, geographic range, habitat and elevations, phenology, life form and habit, and descriptive and biological characteristics. Sources of photographs and drawings are also cited or linked when known, and additional literature citations are provided for further information on each taxon.
An on-line version of the Atlas is now linked to the NNHP web site at: http://www.state.nv.us/nvnhp/ or is available directly at: http://www.state.nv.us/nvnhp/atlas/atlas.html
The maps and fact sheets are generated by automated means directly from the data currently entered in the NNHP databases. This means that relatively recent data for some taxa may not yet be reflected in the Atlas, if they are still awaiting entry. The on-line maps have much lower resolution than paper versions, but should be sufficiently readable to meet most needs.