Atlas des Plantes Vasculaires de L'ile de Terre-Neuve et des Iles de Saint-Pierre-Et-Miquelon(Atlas of the Vascular Plants of the Island of Newfoundland and of the Islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon) by E. Rouleau; G. LamoureuxReview by: Bohumil SlavíkFolia Geobotanica & Phytotaxonomica, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1996), pp. 276-277Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4181453 .

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276 Bookreviews

F. Swink: THE KEY TO THE VASCULAR FLORA OF THE NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES AND SOUTHEASTERN CANADA; John J. Sabuco and Plantsmen's Publications, Flossmoor; Illinois, 1990, VII + 515 + [9] + XII pp.

The key covers almost the complete flora of the area mentioned in the title (90%) with the exception of species which are probably not met with by the usual student. Cultivated plants are not included. This manual is designated for all botanists, but in the first place for nonprofessional students. The keys are based mainly on the characters of plants in flower; vegetative and fruit features are used secondary. The form of the keys is indented and consequently dichotomic.

Determination begins with a key, dividing plants into 11 artificial groups (sections): 1. Flowerless spore-bearing vascular plants, 2. Monocots, 3. Woody wines, 4. Prostrate, creeping, or trailing woody plants, 5. Woody plants with opposite or whorled leaves, 6. Alternate-leaved woody plants, 7. Alternate-leaved or basal-leaved herbaceous plants, 8. Opposite -leaved aquatic herbaceous plants, 9. and 10. Terrestrial herbaceous plants with opposite or whorled leaves, 11. Woody plants with leaves absent at flowering time. In these groups identification continues to the family or genus (with the exception of group 11, where it goes as far as the species). All the keys give warning of possible confusion of characters, the need for a lens, etc.

The main part of the book is an alphabetical list of families or genera names, each with a key to lower taxa (genera and species). The list also includes synonyms and English names with the relevant references. For the species no further data are given. Nevertheless, a species list is attached, giving gross geographical characteristics in the form of abbreviations. The book ends with a dictionary of morphological terms.

The reviewed key is remarkable in the first place from the methodical point of view for its original successive division of plant material. Its use for students of European flora is rather limited; on the other hand it could be very useful for the identification of alien or cultivated plants, indigenous in North America.

Pavel Tomsovic

E. Rouleau & G. Lamoureux: ATLAS DES PLANTES VASCULAIRES DE L'ILE DE TERRE-NEUVE ET DES ILES DE SAINT-PIERRE-ET-MIQUELON (Atlas of the vascular plants of the island of Newfoundland and of the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon); Fleurbec, Quebec, Canada, 1992, 777 pp. Price not given, ISBN 2-920174-12-6

This is a remarkable addition to the world collection of vascular plant distribution maps and one from a region where field research is not at all easy, the Newfoundland archipelago (the easternmost part of Canada - 112 300 km ) and adjacent islets of the French overseas department of Saint Pierre et Miquelon (242 km ). The territory shows all signs of quaternary glaciation and has a cool and wet winter.

The first author, the late Ernest Rouleau (21 August 1916 - 5 January 1991 ) was for many years Professor of floristics and Curator of herbaria at the Universite de Montreal. He spent 22 years studying the flora of Newfoundland, from where he gathered 150 000 herbarium sheets. This and other major collections, especially that of his predecessor, M.L. Fernald (made in 1910-1929), constitute the basis of the present volume, the core of which are extremely precise dot maps of 1197 taxa (555 only on Newfoundland, not on Saint Pierre et Miquelon and 31 only on SPM and not on NF). The junior author, Gisele Lamoureux, Professor Rouleau's student became his assistant in completing the manuscript in the late 1960s, and finished the work. Rouleau, regrettably, did not live to see it printed. Gisele Lamoureux closes the Foreword very modestly when she writes: "We had to stop somewhere; this work is not meant to be definitive. It is a starting point for a better knowledge of the phytogeography of these territories and we already foresee an update."

The main value of the Atlas lies in the maps. The underlying maps are very precise, with a detailed network of streams. Five symbols are used to distinguish among the data: the basic and most frequent symbol represents collections by E. Rouleau or collections of others reviewed by E. Rouleau, others represent literature data or other collectors' material. References are most exhaustive but for various reasons only a minor part of them have been used. Indigenous and introduced species are distinguished. The centrepiece shown on the cover, fly-leaf and title page is the carnivorous Sarracenia purpurea, the national plant of Newfoundland province.

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Bookreviews 277

The fly-leaf also shows a sketch-map. The atlas is bilingual, all texts are in English and French. A number of institutions supported its publication.

The text contains only the biogeography and bibliography of Ernest Rouleau, some important steps in the exploration of the flora of insular Newfoundland and Saint Pierre et Miquelon. A special feature of this Atlas are various, often useless lists of species. The reader would perhaps be happier with an outline of the natural features, especially of orography and glacial history, geological structure, climate, soil and hydrology and a survey of vegetation and phytogeography. Nonetheless, this Atlas is a major contribution to our knowledge of the flora of this beautiful and interesting region and is welcome in the large family of phytochorological atlases.

Bohumil Slavik

J. Szujk6-Lacza & D. Kovats (eds.): THE FLORA OF THE KISKUNSAG NATIONAL PARK. Volume 1, The Flowering Plants. Natural History of the National Parks of Hungary; Magyar Termeszettudomanyi Muzeum, Budapest, 1993, 469 pp.. Price USD 50.-, ISBN 963-7093-19-2

The Flora of the Kiskunsag National Park, Vol. 1, The Flowering Plants represents the sixth contribution in the series of publications by the Hungarian Natural History Museum devoted to the natural history of the Hungarian national parks. Besides the current volume, there are two volumes on the fauna and one volume on the flora of the Hortobagy National Park, two volumes on the fauna of the Biikk National Park and two volumes on the fauna of the Kiskunsag National Park.

The area covered by this work includes not only the Kiskunsag National Park (KNP) itself, but also other areas between the Danube and Tisza Rivers. As stressed in the preface, there is no other region in Hungary where florists have collected so much information as in the Danube-Tisza interfluve. In various scattered published materials, unpublished notes, and herbaria, from Marsigli's first reports from the early 18th century, through Kitaibel's diaries, to the most recent data, there is an amazing amount of data about the flora of this area synthesized by the authors of this volume.

In addition to floristic data, the book contains chapters on regional climate (by A. Borhidi) and soils (by Gy. Varallyay). The chapter devoted to flowering plants includes a check-list with data on plant distribution, occurrence in plant communities (by J. Szujk6-Lacza, D. Kovats and J. Tolgyesi), and a discussion (by J. Szujk6-Lacza). Distribution data were taken from various scattered literature sources, manuscripts, personal records, travel diaries, as well as from herbarium specimens of the herbarium Carpatho-Pannonicum, housed in the herbarium of the Hungarian Museum of Natural History in Budapest (through 1985). For each locality, with the exception of few very broad ones, the grid number following the Central European Flora mapping system is provided with the old names of localities sometimes given in parentheses. From the summarization of the taxa it follows that in the area covered by the present work 1795 taxa (species, subspecies and hybrids) were found. Of these, 70 taxa occur only in the KNP and 484 only in other parts of area studied. The flora of the Kiskunsag National Park comprises 1311 taxa of flowering plants. Comparing the number of taxa of the KNP with that of the Hortobagyi National Park (HNP) it follows that although the area of the HNP is nearly twice that of the KNP, the number of taxa of flowering plants occurring in the latter (131 1) is nearly twice as high as that in the former (768). This striking difference in diversity is explained by the background diversity (e.g. heterogeneity of the surface), soil types, and history of the vegetation in the Postglacial. In the discussion a list of new and unpublished species, subspecies, and hybrids for the area is provided.

The only major oversight which I was able to find in this excellent local flora is the absence of any map of the KNP itself. The flora requires a detailed map of the entire study area including the boundaries of the national park. This map would help the reader not familiar with the KNP to follow the distribution of the given taxa.

Karol Marhold

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