Corybas.

Abstract

TORREYA BOOK REVIEWS Sidney Parkinson, Artist of Cook's En- deavour Voyage. Ed. by D. V. CaIT. xv + 300 pages, illustrated, bibliog- raphy, and index. British Museum (Nat- ural History) in association with Univer- sity of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. 1984. zoological material, together with items of ethnographic and technological interest. Most important, however, is the generous supply of well annotated illustrations, 286 of them, from the British Museum (Nat- ural History), and the British Library. Many of these are reproduced in full color di- rectl y from Parkinson's original drawings, and are generally arranged in systematic order according to Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum, 1862- 1883. Each of the ten sections that comprise the book was written by an expert in that particular area, and the sum equals a new insight into a partially unexplored page of botanical his- tory. In view of the fact that relatively few botanists will ever have the leisure to ex- amine the originals, nor be able to afford the necessarily expensive set of reproduc- tions, this work offers an acceptable digest of the riches to be found in Banhs' Florile- gium. And in an era of astronomical book prices $45 is a rather modest price to pay for a volume of high quality brimming over with matter of scientific and historical in- terest of the first order.-FRANK ]. AN- DERSON, Hon. Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, N.Y. 10458. It is only now, slightly more than 200 years after the event, that we are coming into a position to properly appreciate the accomplishments of the eighteenth century explorers of the Pacific regions. During the course of the first Cook expedition some 952 drawings of plants were made but, ow- ing to human perversity and untimely deaths, were never published although some 740 plates were ready for printing as early as 1785. Luckily Alecto Historical Editions of London began publication of the Banks' Florilegium in 1981; a project still being car- ried on at this date, and which will shortly give us a complete view of the genera and species then discovered. Aside from the inherently interesting biographical and anecdotal materials relat- ing to Parkinson, such as his indefatigable energy, his ability to cope with cramped conditions (85 people in a space only 98 feet long by 30 feet wide), and his persist- ence in the face of insects that devoured his colors almost as fast as he applied them, there are matters of considerable impor- Corybas. By P. Van Royen. 175 pages, 49 figures. ]. Cramer, Vaduz, West Ger- tance to taxonomists. For instance many of the plant names assigned by Daniel Solan- many. DM 100 der were left unpublished or ignored (much the same fate as befell those ofRafinesque), A number of years ago I walked up and his provisional designations were left Mount Salak near Bogar, Indonesia in the company of colleagues and students from to stand without being followed up as he had intended and indicated. There is, for the famed Bogor Botanical Gardens and example, an Ipomoea to which no specific Dr. Charles Lamoureux of the University name has been given even as yet. The bot- of Hawaii. Along the way we saw several any of the Endeavour voyage is still, to a orchid species, some well known and others considerable extent, lerra incognita to many more obscure. None of the flowers we saw students of the floras of the South Pacific were more attractive than those on a Cor- and Australia. ybas plant. The plant was hidden under a There is much more presented in this bush and I would have missed it if it were book than the title indicates, for in addition not for the fact that we sat down to rest to botanical data about Madeira, Brazil, near by. On seeing it I started to crawl un- Tierra del Fuego, Tahiti, New Zealand, der the bush for a closer look but was Australia, and Java, there is a wealth of stopped by my Indonesian friends with the