Book review
Ferns and Allied Plants of Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia
By Betty D. Duncan and Golda Isaac
Photographs by Bruce Fuhrer
Notes on cultivation by C. J. Goudey and R. L. Hill
Melbourne University Press in association with Monash University, 1986.
xii & 258 pp. 8 colour plates, 213 figures and 103 distribution maps. A$35.00.
ISBN 0-522-84262-3.
New Zealand fern-fanciers have long been deprived of the much-loved 'Dobbie' and still lack any com-parable substitute, a situation which, in the land of the koru and the silver fern, cannot be much less than a national disgrace. The appearance of this generously illustrated volume across the Tasman is therefore tantalising. Of some 130 species treated herein, 75 are New Zealand species, approximately 40% of the New Zealand pteridophyte flora. How-ever, not all of the New Zealand pteridophytes which also occur in Australia are in this book, because a handful occur only north of the NSWfVictoria border.
Illustrations include colour and monochrome photographs, line drawings, silhouettes (for Blechnum) and dot maps showing distributions within Victoria plotted on a ten minute grid (close to 15 km2). These maps are themselves a signifi-cant achievement. Can this be the first such pub-lication for Australasia, a series of distribution maps for an entire major group of plants over a sub-stantial geographical or political unit? (The area of Victoria is not far short of that covered by the whole of New Zealand.) The colour plates, displaying soral structure of 12 genera and habitat photos of 36 spe-cies are of quite exceptional quality and generally superior in both contrast and resolution to the very numerous monochrome pictures. It is plain that this is due to degradation in reproduction, not to the monochrome originals being inferior. Though the photographer has in this respect not always been as well served by the printers as he deserved, nevertheless there are many fine things. To give but a single example, I cite the habitat photograph of the tiny Hymenophyllum marginaturn (a Cras-pedophyllurn closely related to our own H. arms-trongiz]. In all, the monochrome photographs comprise 53 habitat studies, 69 studio photos and 122 enlargements. There is a surprising inconsis-tency about the provision of scales; the majority of the enlargements and studio pictures bear scales, but not all. Although generally adequate and often pleasing, the numerous line drawings, which include such important features as scales and hairs, are of inconsistent quality. Occasionally they are some-what less than adequate, as in the case of Tmesip-teris elongata, T. ovata and T. parva, where they do not distinguish between these species clearly. The drawings presented for Hypolepis, where the dis-tribution of hairs can be as important as their form, are also disappointing. To appreciate this last point fully, compare those of Brownsey (New Zealand journal of botany, 1984, 22: pp. 46 & 47).
Keys abound. There is not only an interesting tabular key and an illustrated dichotomous key to genera, but also keys to genera within families as well as to species within genera. The only element lacking is a key to families, which, for ferns, is nowadays probably beyond anyone's ability! A very commendable feature is use of readily observable characters of the vascular anatomy of the stipe. The book lies between a formal flora and a popu-lar treatise in character and ambition. On the one hand, the authors have felt free to displace the Osmundaceae from a conventional systematic position in order to treat them with the Dickson-iaceae and CyatheaceaeJhe reason being that Todea barbara can attain the habit of a tree-fern. On the other hand, they have dared nomenclatural inno-vation. Cystopteris filix-fagiilis (L.)Bernhardi is a novelty to me, and a change to a very familiar name upon which I am not prepared to comment with-out taking expert advice! The justification given appears straightforward enough, but anyone who has ever dabbled in Linnean nomenclature will know that it is subtle and treacherous ground, and rarely straightforward. One aspect of this choice of name does however require mention, for Bruce Fuhrer's photograph makes it very plain that it is applied here to the taxon which for some little while now has been called C. tasmanica Hooker in New Zealand. The situation invites confusion, because it is now evident that, apart from this native Aus-tralasian species, a quite distinct adventive taxon, which may properly (albeit incorrectly!?) be called C. fragilis (L.)Bernhardi, is also present in New Zealand, sometimes in 'wild' situations. This lapse notwithstanding, the nomenclature is well up with the current play, and will not otherwise provide problems in correlation. There are some minor deviations from New Zealand usage. Microsorum (sic, and correctly so) is preferred over Phymato-sorus. The filmy ferns offer an unusual variant in a controversial situation in that segregate genera are recognised within Trichomanes, but not within Hymenophyllum, except for Apteropteris.
The requirement for taxonomic consistency between the Australian and New Zealand floras is always good for a lively discussion, but in this respect the pteridophytes are in a better state of order than some other groups one could name, due in no small measure to the pioneer work of the late Norman Wakefield. One controversial decision he made, the recognition of Schizaea asperula as dis-tinct from S. bijda, is upheld here, but another, by Mary Tindale (Pleurosorus subglandulosus), is not. Tasmanian plants of Apteropteris are now regarded as an endemic species, A. applanata, distinct from our own A. malingii. Recent Australian discoveries of Asplenium terrestre subsp. terrestre and Gram-mitis pseudociliata, both of which can therefore no longer be regarded as New Zealand endemics, are reported.
A very welcome feature of this book is that it provides not only a full description of the recently recognised Cheilanthes austrotenuifolia, but also excellent illustrations comparing it directly with C. sieberi. C. austrotenuifolia is a sexual diploid spe-cies (our two known species, C. distans & C. sie-beri, are both apomict and polyploid) which, judging from its widespread distribution in temperate Aus-tralia, ought to be in New Zealand. Now we know what to look for. Duncan & Isaac include New Zealand in its distribution, but in so doing they have jumped the gun, and misinterpret Quirk et al. (Australian journal of botany, 1983, 31, p. 51 1) who actually wrote " ... probably also occurring in New Zealand.". Also very welcome are excellent photo-graphic enlargements of frond undersurfaces and drawings of frond scales of Gleichenia microphylla, G. dicarpa and G. alpina, a group which continues to give much difficulty in New Zealand.
Common names applied to ferns in Australia are much the same as those used in New Zealand, except that Australians insist on calling species of Blechnum 'water-ferns' instead of 'hard-ferns'. This has clearly presented the authors with a problem, for it has reduced them to treating Azolla, Marsi-lea, and Pilularia under the chapter heading 'Water plants'!
Descriptions are full, with much ecological and distributional information, and include useful syn-opses of field characters. Terminology is accurately used and clearly defined, even though I cannot endorse "diploid: having a set of paired chromo-somes" as an improvement on more conventional definitions. Misprints are very scarce.
Those who already have access to 'Australian Ferns & Fern Allies' by Jones & Clemesha (1976, 198 1) should not therefore hesitate to acquire this new volume. The two works are largely comple-mentary, differing both in style and scope; for instance, only 6 of the 44 habitat colour photos (there are no monochromes) in Jones & Clemesha (Ed. 1) are of species included in Duncan & Isaac.
This really is an excellent book, splendidly pro-duced. One suspects that its compilation has been something of a labour of love for the two author-esses. They are to be congratulated, as is also their photographer colleague, and the Universities of Melbourne and Monash for supporting and facili-tating its publication. If or when, at last, we have a replacement for Dobbie/Crookes, I shall be well satisfied if it is anywhere near as good as this equivalent for SE Australia.
January 1987 John D. Lovis
Department of Plant & Microbial Sciences
University of Canterbury Christchurch,
New Zealand