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212 IAWA Journal , Val. 20 (2),1999 Argentine Cbaco forests . Dendrology, tree structure and economic use. 1. The semi arid Chaco. Encyclopedia ofPlantAnatomy, Vol. XIV, part 5.1. Roth &A. Gimenez de Bolz6n , viii + 180 pp ., illus ., 1997. Gebr. Borntraeger, Berlin, Stuttgart. ISBN 3-443 14025-4. Price: DM 164 (hardback) . This addition to the Encyclopedia 0/ Plant Anatomy has an appealing setup . It de scribes in detail 30 economically important trees of a particular area, the Argentine Chaco forest. The selection comprises 13 Leguminosae, 4 Anacardiaceae, 2 Capparaceae, and 11 familie s represented by a single specie s.The approach is admirably wide in scope , starting with a sketch of the history of human exploitation of the Chaco forest and con tinuing with descriptions of the dendrology, bark, bark anatomy, wood anatomy, and possible economic uses . It concludes with suggestions on conservation and restoration . A wide range of topics is touched upon up to and including the introduction of solar stoves as an altern ative for firewood . This setup is very attractive, but also vulnerable : it needs great care to bring it to full bloom . Earlier effort s in this series by the senior author have met with a less than a totally favourable reception . Unfortunately there are more than a few flaws in the present work, even if only the wood anatomical part is regarded . The wood anatomical descriptions focus on 'ecologically relevant characters' , at the cost of omitting details such as pits, number of cells per parenchyma strand , ray height, etc . In view ofthe paucity ofEnglish literature on woods from this area this limitation is quite regrettable. On the other hand, this focus on ecologically significant characters is not carried out consistently. Ablanket description of "vessels so litary, in multiples of 2-3 or racemiform" is highly imprecise . An indication of the proportion of solitary ves sels versu s multiple s would seem called for. Simi1arly for uniseriate versus multi seriate rays. Ecologically speaking it would suffer not on1y from these limitations, but also from a heavy influence of Spani sh idiom. Terms such as " porosity semicircular" (semi ring-porous), "appendices of vessels" (vessel tails), "acroheterogeneous rays" (supposed ly a Kribs term!) may provide some 'couleur locale' but hardly enhance readability. The shortcomings of the descriptions are somewhat compensated for by the illustra tions. The wood anatomy is illustrated by 16 half-tone plates of good printing quality . These present a seemingly haphazard se1ection, ranging in magnification from 12.5 x to 250x ; of the 30 species 8 are not illustrated . The photographs are mostly of transverse sections but include some tangential ones and a single radial section (fig. 29d; included to show storied structure of parenchyma! !). Some serious discrepancies bctween illus trations and descriptions are apparent. Of Celtis tala two transverse sections are given that appear mutually incompatible: fig. 22b might match the description given, while fig. 33c matches Tortorelli's (1956) description and illustration of Celtis . In the same vein , the illustration of Geoffroea decorticans shows stories, uniseriate homogeneous rays , while the description states : "Rays acroheterogeneous , multi(3), seldom biseriate, with contact and isolation cells," A glance at Tortorelli's magnum opus supports the photograph. Similarly for Castela coccinea , cf. O'Donell (1937) . This leaves the impres sion that from the point of view of purely descriptive wood anatomy there is indeed a distinct need for a book along these lines, but that the prcsent work is not it. One may hope that this book, with its distinguished appearance, in spite of its ana tomical shortcornings, may help to focus attention to theChaco forest and contribute towards conserving and restoring it. P. van Rijckevorsel
IAWA Journal – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1999
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