EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF BOTANY 68 (2): 325–331 (2011) 325 (cid:2)Trustees of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2011) BOOK REVIEWS SeedsofAmazonianPlants.FernandoCornejo&JohnJanovec.Princeton&Oxford: PrincetonUniversityPress.2010.xxviii+158pp.,750colourillustrations.ISBN978 0 691 11929 8 (hardback). ISBN 978 0 691 14647 8, £35 (paperback). doi:10.1017/S0960428611000163 Published as a Princeton Field Guide, this book is an extremely interesting contribution to the study of the immense biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest. Although there are a few previous publications dealing with seeds of the neotropics (e.g.vanRoosmalen,1985;Stevensonetal.,2000;Lentz&Dickau,2005;Lobovaet al., 2009), Seeds of Amazonian Plants is unique in that it represents the first field guideforidentifyingneotropicalplantsbytheirseedstogenuslevel.Theproductof more than two decades of botanical and ecological field work in the Peruvian Amazon,thisbookcontains750seedimagesrepresenting543generain131families. The main body of the text is divided into two parts. After an introductory Aid to Identification of Amazonian Seeds which includes a key based on characters such as thepresence/absenceofwingsorhairsassistingwinddispersalfollowedbyseedsize, colour, shape and surface patterns, the Family and Genus Descriptions rely much more on images than on lengthy verbal descriptions to provide an easy-to-use identification aid. The seed images (mostly colour photographs, a few SEMs) are arranged in alphabetical order,first by family and then by genus, and supported by briefbotanicaldescriptionsoftherespectivefamiliesandgenera,includingnoteson the distribution of each genus and information about some of their known uses in the Amazon. The quality of the images varies but is generally very good. Usually, one species per genus is shown but of the largest and most diverse genera, several species are illustrated. A brief illustrated glossary explaining botanical terms is also provided, at the back of the book. Without attempting to diminish the value of this publication, there are some points of criticism I feel I should mention. First of all, rather than applying the current classification of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG), the authors decidedtofollowa‘modified’Cronquistclassificationsystem,pointingoutthatthey ‘found this to be the most well-documented system for us to complete this book, as well as for others who will be using this book to identify seeds in the Amazon and beyond’. I fail to understand this reasoning and rather feel that a point has been missed, for example, in maintaining the Flacourtiaceae (now distributed over the AchariaceaeandSalicaceae)ortheEuphorbiaceaesensulato,stillincludingthenow widely recognised family Phyllanthaceae. Secondly, I would have found it much more informative if the very short captions to the photographs had not only mentioned family, genus and seed size but also given the name of the very species shown as well as the nature of the diaspore illustrated (e.g. seed, stone, whole fruit, 326 BOOK REVIEWS etc.). Apropos diaspore ... the authors define the term, which simply means ‘dispersal unit’ (and, as such, may refer to a seed, fruit, fruit fragment, or even awholeplant),soastoexcludeseedsfromthedefinition;thisisnothowthetermis commonlydefinedandused.Othererrorsinclude theincorrectuseoftheterm‘aril’ when,inreality,asarcotesta(fleshyseedcoat)ispresent,forexampleintheseedsof Jacaratia (p. 36), Richeria (p. 57) and Inga (p. 65). For such a prestigious publisher as Princeton University Press, I would have expected the editor not only to have applied stricter scientific rigour to the manuscript but also to have been thorough enoughtospototherirritatingerrors.Forexample,thereareseveralreferenceswith discrepancies between the text and thereference list, and some aremissing from the list altogether. Fortunately, these shortcomings do not really reduce the practical application of the book and, considering the strong interest researchers have developed over the lastdecadeinseeddispersal,seedlingestablishmentandseedlingidentificationinthe tropics, Seeds of Amazonian Plants is an extremely important piece of work. It not onlyhelpstofillagapinthebotanicalliteratureonneotropicalplants,butisalsoan excellent complement to recent works published on the morphology of tropical seedlingssuchasNancyGarwood’s(2009)monumentaltreatmentSeedlingsofBarro Colorado Island and the Neotropics and the both authoritative and beautifully producedvolumeonAmazonianfruits,seedsandseedlingsbyCamargoetal.(2008). As afieldguide, SeedsofAmazonianPlantsprovides anew andexciting tool that will,forthefirsttime,allowaccesstothebewilderingplantdiversityoftheAmazon rainforest via seeds and other diaspores, an approach that hitherto has only been possible – if at all – by using herbarium specimens or carpological collections. A major advantage of using diaspores for identification is that they can simply be pickedupfrom thegroundratherthanhaving tobeharvestedfromthecanopylike leaves and flowers. With an estimated 78,800 flowering plant species in the neotropics belonging to 284 families, this field guide can, inevitably, cover only part of the enormous diversity one encounters in the Amazon rainforest and the neotropical region. Nevertheless, even with its limited scope, Seeds of Amazonian Plants is a major contribution to tropical botany, being the only practical tool currently available to help with the identification of Amazonian plants by their seeds. It will be an extremely important reference for anybody interested in tropical botany, including botanists, ecologists, horticulturists and nature enthusiasts, and offers an exciting new window on this most charismatic of ecosystems. References Camargo,J. L. C.,Ferraz,I. D. K.,Mesquita,M. R.,Santos,B. A. &Brum, H. D.(2008).Guia dePropa´gulos ePlaˆntulasdaAmazoˆnia. Manaus,Brazil: INPA. Garwood,N.C.(2009).SeedlingsofBarroColoradoIslandandtheNeotropics.Ithaca,NY: Cornell UniversityPress. BOOK REVIEWS 327 Lentz,D. L. &Dickau,R. (2005).SeedsofCentralAmericaandSouthernMexico:The EconomicSpecies.MemoirsoftheNewYorkBotanicalGarden91.Bronx,NY:TheNew YorkBotanical Garden. Lobova,T. A.,Geiselman,C. K. &Mori,S. A.(2009).SeedDispersalbyBatsinthe Neotropics.Bronx, NY:The New YorkBotanicalGarden. Roosmalen,M. G. M.van (1985).A Guideto theFruits ofthe Guianan Flora. Wageningen,Holland: Universityof Utrecht Press/Veenman. Stevenson,P.,Quin˜ ones,M. J. &Castellanos,M. C.(2000).Guı´adeFrutosdelos Bosquesdel Rı´oDuda, LaMacarena, Colombia. Bogota´:IUCN. Wolfgang Stuppy FloraMalesiana,SeriesI.Volume19.Cucurbitaceae.W.J.J.O.deWilde&B.E.E. Duyfjes. Leiden: Nationaal Herbarium Nederland. 2010. iv + 342 pp. CD-ROM with keys constructed in LUCID PHOENIX by H. P. Nooteboom. ISBN 978 90 71236 72 3 (NUR 941). V75 (paperback). doi:10.1017/S0960428611000175 The latest volume of Flora Malesiana, Series I – Seed Plants is a revision of the Cucurbitaceae, including the cultivated and naturalised species along with the 121 native ones. As expected, de Wilde and Duyfjes have written an excellent account which will alloweasydeterminationofcucurbitmaterial,bothinthefieldandintheherbarium. Mostofthecharactersusedinthekeysaremacroscopicandcanbeobservedwithout difficultyongoodspecimens.Bycarefullyreadingtheintroduction(pp.1–15),plant collectors will learn how important it is to make complete collections which, at the very least, means not breaking the tendrils by dragging the plant out of the vegetation it climbs in. ThesametwoauthorsrevisedtheCucurbitaceaeintheFloraofThailand(vol.9(4), 2008) and it is interesting to compare the two revisions. When a genus, such as Gomphogyne, occurs in both floras, the generic descriptions have been carefully adjusted to account for variation in the region being treated. Species accounts have alsobeenedited,sometimestofollowtheformatofeachflora,sometimestodescribe features more clearly. For example, this Flora Malesiana revision distinguishes the margin from the edge of the seed in a way that improves understanding of the structures and allows more accurate usage in keys. The format of Flora Malesiana permits considerably more synonymy to be reported than that of the Flora of Thailand. The bookcontains98elegant andinformativelinedrawings,97ofthemmadeby J.H.vanOsandtheotherbyRuthvanCrevel.Thesedrawingsarethesameasthose in the Flora of Thailand, when the species is found in both regions, but more finely printed.The32colour platesshowrepresentativespeciesofalmostallthegenera of Malesia,revealingthebeautyofplantswhichcansometimeslookratherscrappyby the time they reach the herbarium.