Conifer reproductive biology

Abstract

This slim and well-presented book is intended to be a text supplement for plant biology courses; however, given that the subject matter is quite restricted, it will probably be a relatively minor text supplement. The author also claims that as new plant biology texts appear, less and less is devoted to conifer reproductive biology, and this may well be true. It is therefore important that if this book is to fit that purpose, then it must cover the subject matter thoroughly. It is, therefore, somewhat disappointing, but – given its commercial implications, hardly surprising – that the emphasis is so strongly placed on one genus, namely Pinus. But as a supplementary text it also has a number of other interesting features. The logic of the presentation is good. The fossil record is dealt with first, followed by an orderly transition through the major features of the reproductive life cycle. However, as a book for students, there are a number of unfortunate aspects to this volume. Firstly, the section on the fossil record has reference to living fossils, and uses Wollemi Pine as the main example of this; however, Wollemi Pine has little or no credibility as a living fossil. There is no authenticated fossil record of Wollemi Pine and before it was discovered there was no sense that a part of the Araucariaceae existed in the fossil record that was represented by this living taxon. The ‘living fossil’ tag on Wollemi Pine was part of an inaccurate but highly successful marketing strategy to bring this species to prominence once it had been discovered. It is unfortunate when a book like this adheres to an unproven marketing mantra. Agathis jurassica, mentioned on page 14 as ‘similar to Wollemi pine’, is probably not Agathis, could possibly be Wollemia, but at present is not even convincingly placed within the Araucariaceae (Stockey, 1990; Hill and Brodribb 1999). While rest of the book follows a clear structure, it is let down by errors of expression that are sometimes impossible to interpret, e.g. on page 40 we see ‘Note that this class of meiotic mutations arise do not arise in the same way as somatic mutations’. This is not an isolated occurrence of this kind of problem in the book. The number of spelling errors is also unacceptably high, especially with species names, e.g. Arthtrotaxis (instead of Athrotaxis), Araucaria cookie (A. cookii), and worst of all, Ginkgo is quite consistently given as Gingko, except in tables copied from other sources. Given the number of times this iconic genus is mentioned this is very sloppy proof reading. The quality of photographic plates varies considerably, and in the worst case details are quite indistinct. Nevertheless, this book provides a good summary of conifer reproductive biology, especially for Pinus. However, it does fall short in presentation and breadth, and overall does not fill the gap as promised in the introduction. It is hard to imagine too many Plant Biology courses where this will be seen as an essential supplementary text. Conifer specialists will find useful information here, but this is, unfortunately, a relatively small market.