| BEN |
| BOTANICAL ELECTRONIC NEWS |
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| ISSN 1188-603X |
| No. 311 May 30, 2003 | aceska@victoria.tc.ca | Victoria, B.C. |
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Emil Hadač, Professor Emeritus at Charles University in Prague and the former director of the Institute of Landscape Ecology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, died in Prague on 23 April 2003, shortly before his 89th birthday. Hadač was one of the foremost phytosociologists and phytogeographers of his time. By the international botanical community, he has been best known as an author of comprehensive studies on plant communities in Svalbard (Spitsbergen), Iceland, and the High Tatra Mountains (Slovakia).
Professor Hadač was born on May 10, 1914, in Bohdanec near Pardubice, in what a few years later became Czechoslovakia. He graduated from Charles University, Prague, in 1938, after defending his RNDr thesis on plant communities of Reykjanes peninsula, Iceland. Among his teachers in Prague were Karel Domin and Vladimir Krajina. The following two years Hadač spent in Norway and Svalbard. Here was the beginning of his life-long collaboration and friendship with the famous Norwegian botanist and ecologist Eilif Dahl. As a matter of fact, it was Hadač who redirected Dahl from geology to botany. In 1948 Hadač published, together with his brother Jan, his first regional flora, "Flora of the Pardubice Region." After a short lasting assistantship with Professor Jaromir Klika in the Institute of Applied Botany, Hadač became a director of the Peat Research Institute and later Professor at the College of Education in Plzen. He was a visiting professor at the University of Baghdad, Iraq, during the period 1959-1961. From 1962 Hadač worked in the Institute of Botany, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1971 he became a director of the Institute of Landscape Ecology, however, because of his uncompromising attitudes, he was replaced by a politically more reliable director in 1978.
He published over 200 papers in professional journals, one monograph (Hadač et al. 1969), four regional floras, one textbook, and five popular scientific books. He was professionally active to the very end. His last paper will be pub- lished next month. A partial bibliography of his publications was published in Preslia 46:271-277 (1974), 56: 282-284 (1984), and 66: 275-277 (1994). Hadač himself, or in cooperation with other botanists, described two new plant genera, 20 species, and seven subspecies from Svalbard, Iraq, Cuba, the Caucasus Mountains, and the High Tatra Mountains. In the field of vegetation classification, his three classes, eight orders, at least 20 alliances, and over 90 associations are recognized by other phytosociologists today.
Hadač always believed that not only competition, but also positive interactions among plant populations are responsible for the structuring of plant communities. Interestingly, the role of facilitation has been fully recognized by plant ecologists only recently (Callaway & Pennings 2000, Choler et al. 2001, Bruno et al. 2003). Positive interactions were at the core of Hadač's life. He would rarely make any negative comments about other scientists. It was truly enjoyable to work with him, especially in the field. He has profoundly influenced at least two generations of younger botanists. He will be sorely missed by many colleagues, students, and friends.
The registration for Botany BC 2003 - Bella Coola Valley and Surrounding Areas (July 4 to July 6, 2003) has now been posted. See the updated Botany BC website at: http://members.shaw.ca/dmeidinger/botanybc/ for details and the registration form.
And for those who have not yet booked their accommodation or who are looking for more detail about the area there is a new and improved website with local information at: http://www.bellacoola.ca/html/hospitality.html
Looking forward to July in the Bella Coola Valley!
Elizabeth Easton Research Officer, Ecology & Earth Sciences Ministry of Forests, Research Branch Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Tel: (250) 953-3488, Fax: (250) 387-0046 e-mail: Elizabeth.Easton@gems3.gov.bc.ca
In 2002, the Native Plant Society of BC launched the first phase of E-Flora BC, an electronic atlas of the plants of British Columbia. The idea of an atlas for BC plants is not a new one, and was first discussed by the Society in 1996. An inventory of the flora of the province was introduced as one of the founding objectives of the group, and was discussed during the first membership meeting at the University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops in November of that year. In 1997, as the idea of an inventory evolved into the one of developing an atlas of BC plants, Adolf Ceska, along with Tom Wells and Mishtu Banerjee, investigated the idea further.
Adolf reviewed potential mapping systems and software based on discussions with Bob Maher and Brian Klinkenberg, researchers who worked with GIS and mapping programs at Royal Roads and the University of British Columbia. The idea of an atlas was also on the agenda at the NPSBC AGM in Pentiction in 1998, and, in the following year, Malcolm Martin investigated other inventories for the Board of Directors. The Society issued a news release on the project to local media during the 1998 conference, and the Kelowna daily newspaper contacted us for more information.
At that point, the initiative was put on hold because of the development of the British Columbia Conservation Data Centre (CDC) databases, and the importance of not duplicating that work. However, in 2002, the idea of an atlas of BC plants was re-ignited on a broader scale, incorporating all of the components mentioned above, and a partnership was formed between the NPSBC, the UBC Herbarium (under the direction of Fred Ganders) and the Spatial Data Lab in the Department of Geography, Univerity of British Columbia UBC (under the direction of Brian Klinkenberg) to launch the project. In its first stages, E-Flora BC will develop a pilot project on the Orchids of BC, a relatively small family of plants that will allow us to test the computer programming for the project and work through the details of what will be needed for a full-scale atlas.
Today, E-Flora BC is a reality, and is now underway with teams of volunteers, students and professionals working to bring together several key components to make the idea of an electronic atlas work. Supporting partners have provided funding, or are contributing in other ways, such as in-kind dona- tions of labour and data. The BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management, for example, is contributing data files from The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia in order to merge the two initiatives online, and the BC Ministry of Forests is providing Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification data in order to provide detailed ecological information on our provincial plants and ecosystems. Two British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) GIS and computer programming students, Rachel Wiersma and Ingrid Huang, are working diligently on developing programming for E-Flora BC that will allow us to put interactive distribution maps on-line, while at the same time meeting their course requirements. They have now developed the base map, and are working on the interactive components.
In the UBC Herbarium, space has been provided for E-Flora BC and a dedicated computer set up. A team of volunteers is working on data entry, data clean up, and specimen annotation in order to speed the process of getting the complete University of British Columbia Herbarium (UBC) specimen database on-line. A work study student has been assigned to aid in data entry, and a summer student position will also be assigned to E-Flora data entry. Funding from the UBC Herbarium Fund has been provided to assist with computer hardware and software purchases.
Correspondingly, the Spatial Data Lab in the Department of Geography, UBC, has also provided space and funding for EFlora BC, and a server and data entry computer have been set up. It is there that the computer programming and mapping work is being carried out and where the biogeographic database will be housed, including additional distributional data, the image bank for the project, and other databases provided for the project. A mapping and programming team has been established comprised of volunteers, students and professionals to address the short-term and long-term needs for the project.
Our first major funder for the project was the Vancouver Orchid Society, which donated funds towards the purchase of two computers for the project, one for the UBC Herbarium and one for the Spatial Data Lab. This support has been particularly instrumental in launching E-Flora BC. In addition, funding has been provided by the NPSBC, the UBC Herbarium Fund and the Spatial Data Lab. Individuals are also making generous donations, allowing us to begin building a fund to hire an experienced computer programmer. Additional funding will be sought and a fund-raising team has been established.
As the idea of E-Flora BC catches on, we hope it will provide a central repository for plant information in BC. Additional funding will be critical to developing the computer programming. However, the strength of E-Flora BC lies in the network of NPSBC botanists and volunteers who are the heart of the project, and in the universal need for this information in a publicly accessible format to meet research, conservation and educational needs. This is a project that belongs to all of us, and we welcome partnerships and the involvement of the botanical community at large.
For further information on E-Flora BC, contact the project coordinator, Brian Klinkenberg [brian@geog.ubc.ca]. Or visit the E-Flora web pages at http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~brian/florae/
For information on the NPSBC visit http://NPSBC.ORG/ or email information@npsbc.org
[Contents: 8 chaps. (see review); biblio.; Eng. abstr.; index; abbrs. For samples and order form see http://www.botanik.univie.ac.at/pershome/hoerandl/Weidenbuch.htm.]
Weiden in Österreich und angrenzenden Gebieten is one of those books that I don't scribble in or use "dog-ears" as bookmarks. I would also rather own it in hardcover if it were available in this form. Layout, printing, and photos are of excellent quality, and the expertise of the text is, in every respect, up to the appearance of the book. As stated in its preface, the authors attempted to combine systematic, biological, ecological, and technical information for a wide range of readers. This objective has been met in an exemplary way. The book is comprehensive for botanists and professionals in soil- bioengineering and vegetation restoration, yet easily usable by amateur naturalists. The genus Salix has long had a rather poor reputation among botanists. Endlicher, another Austrian botanist, expressed such feelings in 1841 when he noted that Salix was "botanicorum crux et scandalum" (the cross and embarrassment of botanists). The present book will certainly help to take the edge off this old statement. The introductory section of the book includes five chapters:
Chapters 3 to 5 have many references to recent publications that cannot be found in such a concise form elsewhere. Much of the introductory section is of general interest and will attract readers from outside the botanical community and from other countries.
The systematic section starts with chapter 6, distinguishing characteristics and keys (31 pages). Species can be independently keyed by vegetative characters (leaves and shoots in summer and fall), by floral characters (male or female), and by buds and twigs in the winter condition.
Chapter 7, native species (66 pages), describes 32 species in a well-structured scheme, with one text page per species and a plate of excellent color photos on the opposing page. Except for two species with a very limited distribution, Salix starkeana in southern Germany and S. apennina in southern Switzerland, the book covers the whole range of the European Alps, pre-alps, and adjacent lowlands, including all of Switzerland. Compared to the popular publication Die Weiden von Mittel- und Nordeuropa (D. & E. Lautenschlager- Fleury, 1994, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel), which is out of print, the present publication gives more in-depth information and has a more realistic approach to the difficult systematics of section Phylicifoliae (S. bicolor, S. hegetschweileri, and S. phylicifolia). Were the book expanded to include S. starkeana and S. apennina, it could become a new standard reference for the willows of central Europe.
The systematic section closes with chapter 8, hybrids (8 pages), which includes short descriptions of the eleven most common hybrids in the area and deals with the role of hybridization and polyploidy in the evolution of the genus. The English abstract at the end of the book will be greatly appreciated by many readers. An English translation of the book, perhaps as a separate text-only version, would greatly increase the potential readership.
-- Walter Büchler, Boise, ID [buecdoug@msn.com]
There is no dearth of fine books on trees, but this heavy, 800- page tome immediately rises to the top of the brew due to its exceptional illustrations by David More. An eleven-page introduction, which includes a two-page list of "trees for problem sites or special needs," precedes the heart of the book, a massive, 756- page encyclopedia illustrating and describing the trees. More's beautiful drawings fill the versos and the lower halves of the rectos beneath John White's concise text on the upper halves of the rectos--literally a textual frosting on an illustrative cake. And the cake is incredibly rich, showing in photorealistic detail the habit of the trees as well as their features of bark, leaf, and cone or flower and fruit. In all there are some 4500 color drawings. The text, roughly a fifth of a page per species, describes essentials of morphology and taxonomy, which are superimposed over a synoptic line giving criteria for "growth" (average height in meters at 10 years, 20 years, and "eventually"), "hardiness" (on a percent basis ranging from 100% at -40øC to 0% at freezing), and "choice" (4 arbitrary indications of garden value ranging from excellent, good, so- so, to not recommended). Arrangement of the circa 1000 species (plus cultivars) is from Ginkgo, taxads, 6 families of conifers, 38 of dicotyledons (Salicaceae-Scrophulariaceae), and then Palmae, the sole monocotyledon--the gymnosperms on 242 pages, the dicotyledons on 512, and the palms on 2. These are plants found mainly in British, continental, and North American plantings; tropical species get mostly short shrift. The overall production of the book is superb. This work is truly a joy, a substantial one, to have and behold. -- Rudolf Schmid, UC
"The bark of a tree," like the bark of a dog, "is as individual as a fingerprint" (p. 19). The first chapter illustrates 18 types of bark; the second chapter details the gross anatomy and function of bark; the third chapter summarizes its ethnobotany. These first 39 pages contain most of the text of the book. The high point of this valuable, beautifully done atlas is the 188-page A-Z encyclopedia showing over 440 taxa, with mostly four color photos per page, but often a single gorgeous photo filling a page. Some genera get appreciable treatment, for instance, 30 species of Pinus depicted in 51 photos covering 18 pages. Each figure caption gives Latin and common names, family, indication of nativity, and source of the photo, but alas nada on morphology. Many photos are of plants grown in botanical gardens and arboreta. In all there are 561 color photos, 28 color illustrations, and 18 B&W drawings. Timber Press lives up to its arborescent name in producing its second superb book on bark, the other one being K. B. Sandved et al.'s Bark: The formation, characteristics, and uses of bark around the world (Ibid., 1993, ISBN 0-88192-262-5, HB, $49.95; see Taxon 43: 339). -- Rudolf Schmid, UC
[Contents: lists personnel; intro; update for phylogeny, class. monocotyledons; tax. pt.; 45- p. biblio.; index. On 11 fam., 177 gen. (23 endemic, 31 alien), 908 spp. (589 endemic, 94 alien), 116 "conservation taxa"; the 5 largest fam.: Orchid. 69/207 gen./spp. (3/96 endemic), Lili. 70/478 (19/373), Irid. 16/92 (0/61), Agav. 9/84 (0/38), Smilac. 1/20 (0/16), plus Alo., Burmanni., Dioscore., Haemodor., Pontederi., Stemon.; w/ 112 ill., 1138 thumbnail maps. This fifth vol., the largest publ. so. far (30 vols. planned) in this fine series, begun 1993, is in the same format as vols. 2, 3, 22 (1993, 1997, 2000). See http://hua.huh.harvard.edu/fna for info and online treatments. For revs. of vols. 1- 3 see R. Schmid, Taxon 43: 147-148, 46: 179- 194, 47: 208-209; for notice vol. 22 see Taxon 49: 868.]
[Contents: foreword by T. B. Deen; metric sys.; 14 chaps. in 4 topic areas (roads, vehicles, ecol.; veg., wildlife; water, chemicals, atmosphere; road systems, perspectives); biblio.; bionotes; index. Pp. 75- 111 on "roadsides and vegetation." For I. F. Spellerberg's more accessible Ecological effects of roads (2002) see Taxon 52: 173.]
Contents: in 3 topic areas: (a) Epimedium, Vancouveria: fam. Berberid. (w/ key to herb. gen.); hist.; morph.; class.; geogr.; cult.; tax. pts.; (b) rev. other herb. gen.: Achlys; Caulophyllum; Diphylleia; Ramzania; Jeffersonia; Bongardia; Gymnospermium; Leontice; chromo. counts in Berberid., excl. Podophyllum; (c) Podophyllum (by J. M. H. Shaw): morph.; poll., breeding sys.; cytol.; tax. pt.; doubtful, excl. taxa; biblios.; index. Beautifully executed, and one of Stearn's (1911-2001) last works. For rev. see D. Hinkley, Pac. Hort. 64(2): 10.]
[Contents: intro to algae-A, w/ key to groups in chaps. 2-22 (by RGS & JDW); freshwater habits (JDW & RGS); coccoid, colonial cyanobacteria (J. Kom rek); filamentous idem (Kom rek et al.); red A (RGS); flagellated green A (H. Nozaki); nonmotile coccoid, colonial green A (L. E. Shubert); filamentous, plantlike green A (D. M. John); conjugating green A, desmids (J. F. Gerrath); photosyn. euglenoids (J. R. Rosowski); eustigmatophyte, raphidophyte, tribophyte A (D. W. Ott & C. K. Oldham-Ott); chrysophycean A (K. H. Nicholls & D. F. Wujek); haptophyte A (Nicholls); synurophyte A (P. A. Silver); centric diatoms--Ds (E. F Stoermer et al.); araphid, monoraphid Ds (J. C. Kingston); symmetrical naviculoid Ds (J. P. Kociolek & S. A. Spaulding); eunotioid, asymmetrical naviculoid Ds (idem); keeled, canelled raphid Ds (R. L. Lowe); dinoflagellates (S. Carty); cryptomonads (P. Kugrens & B. L. Clay); brown A (JDW); use A in environ. assessments (R. J. Stevenson & J. P. Smol); control of pesty A (C. A. Lembi); glossary; 3 indices. On 770 gen., w/ keys to gen.; a mammoth successor to G. M. Smith's The freshwater algae of the United States, 2nd ed. (1950).]