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Book Review: Population Genetics of Forest Trees.

Compiling a major flora is like painting the Forth Bridge: as soon as the end is reached, it is necessary to start at the beginning again. The five volumes of Flora Europaea, which were completed, to well-deserved plaudits, in 1977, provide formal taxonomic descriptions of the species of wild, weedy, naturalized and widely cultivated plants of Europe, together with keys for identification to family, genus and species. In 1983 it was agreed that Volume 1 should be revised, and in 1993 the second edition appeared. No decision has yet been reached on when, or whether, to revise the other volumes. The new Volume 1 necessarily conforms closely to the plan of the first edition. Since this was conceived in the late 1950s, the new edition is in something of a time warp. The families of Pteridophytes, and their sequence, have been revised to follow a 1987 treatment. No comparable rearrangement has been possible for the flowering plant families, which still appear in an Englerian sequence, starting with the catkin-bearers and other petal-less dicotyledons. Volume 1 ends, as previously, part way through the Rosales. It therefore treats some families of agricultural or horticultural importance (Chenopodiaceae, Brassicaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Grossulariaceae) and some which contain notorious weeds (Polygonaceae, Papaveraceae). The revision has been done with a much smaller team than that which wrote the first volume, but the same meticulous standards are applied. Chromosome counts are included only when they come from material of known wild European origin. Extra-European distributions are not generally given because the same binomial may be used in different continents for taxa which are not actually the same species. The Flora is therefore an unusually reliable source of much information on the wild relatives of those crops which have originated within Europe. Unfortunately, the erroneous use of the category cultivar, present throughout the first edition, has not been corrected in this new edition. Extensive revisions of the genera in this volume have resulted in 20 taxa being deleted but 350 new taxa being included. These include 40 species of naturalized aliens and 25 species newly recognized as European natives. The remainder represent authors' and editors' judgement on the status of the 250 new species and 150 new subspecies described for the families in Volume 1 since the first edition was published. The fact that so many new taxa are being described in a flora as well known as that of Europe illustrates the need for constant updating of all the volumes in this Flora. It is the Editorial Committee's misfortune that they conceived and largely implemented their massive undertaking just before the revolution in word-processing, databases and acceptability of cameraready copy and alternative forms of publication such as CD-ROM became widespread. The delay in deciding whether or not to revise the other volumes presumably reflects uncertainty about whether to abandon the traditional format in favour of one lending itself to more rapid, and less costly, revision. All those who need to identify, or seek information about, the wild plants of Europe must hope that funds and expertise can be found to keep one of the most successful major modern floras as up-to-date as possible.