Plant Science Bulletin 60(2) 2014 of “Synthesis and Conclusions”—has the juiciest contents. For it is Chapter 6 that contains the intriguing results of Harrison’s many years of work on California endemism. At the risk of being a “spoiler,” I will mention only a few teasers here (skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want me to give away the ending): Plant endemism does not seem to stimulate animal endemism. Plants are not animals and were affected differently by the forces driving endemism. Elevated speciation and low extinction rates played important roles, while biogeographic barriers did not. In fact, geomorphological heterogeneity, which is always associated with present-day California (think: beaches and rocky shorelines, deserts, foothills, rugged mountain ranges, and fertile wide-bottomed valleys), is not the key to the high endemism in this state. Plant and Animal Endemism in California is a wellwritten and well-documented scholarly treatise on biological endemism in the California Floristic Province. The development of topics is logical and seamless, taking the reader smoothly through the book. It helps to have such good explanatory figures and tables. In the first four chapters of the book, hardly a page goes by without such an illustration. There are over 24 black-and-white figures, which are mostly maps, but also include graphs, charts, drawings, and photos, as well as 15 tables. The last 30 pages of the volume are dedicated to listing the thousands of plant species that are endemic to the California Floristic Province, organized by family and with a note on their present-day biogeography (i.e., found in California, Oregon, or Baja). I love the retro look of this hardbound book. In its size and graphic design, it has the clean lines of a 1960s primer in California—my formative years in school. The book cover is thick and creamy to the touch. Featured on the front is a photo of three plant genera rich in California endemic species: Allium falcifolium (sickle-leaved onion), Sedum oreganum (Oregon stonecrop), and Lewisia cotyledon (Siskiyou bitterroot). The pop of fresh color provided by the striped pink and white flowers and deep pink inflorescence peduncle of the bitterroot, the rosy pink leaves of the two succulents, and the spring green of the leaves is accentuated by the pink and green stripes at the bottom of the book cover. While the subject matter of this book will be most appealing to specialists and students in botany, ecology, and biogeography, Plant and Animal Endemism in California will also be of great use to zoologists interested in California endemism.
Similarly, the chapter on conservation is a must for policymakers and nature lovers who value the biotic richness and uniqueness of this western state. Furthermore, the list price of less than $50 for this scholarly and beautifully hardbound book makes it easy for libraries and museums all over the world to obtain this volume, especially during these financially restrictive times. The main reason, though, to get your hands on a copy of Plant and Animal Endemism in California is because it is a landmark in the study of plant and animal endemism that will surely form the basis for future studies to come in ecology, biogeography, floristics, and endemism. – Carole T. Gee, on sabbatical at Huntington Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, and at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA
Economic Botany
Caper: The Genus Capparis
Ephraim Philip Lansky, Helena Maaria Paavilainen, and Shifra Lansky 2013. ISBN-13: 978-1-4398-6136-3 Hardcover, US$129.95. xxiv + 317 pp. Traditional Herbal Medicines for Modern Times vol. 12 CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Mythopoesis. No, I had never seen this word either. According to the dictionary, the title of Chapter 1 means “the creation of myths.” Okay, though I wouldn’t have thought a serious piece of academic research would care much about myth-making. The authors are concerned with explaining the derivation of the common name and the genus name of the book’s title, which they claim both derive from the word for goat (language unspecified). Only this much is surely true, that the word caper is derived from the Latin capparis. In Latin, the domesticated goat is Capra aegagrus, and the word comes into English in, for example, Isle of Capri. I can find no dictionary, including the Oxford English Dictionary, that derives caper (in the sense of “stunt” or “criminal behavior”) or caprice (“whim”) from the Latin for goat. In any case, Quattrocchi, in CRC World Dictionary of
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