update book review:;

One problem with testing the theories is that data from studies on the natural history of plants and their pollination mechanisms do not provide us with enough detail. The acquisition of data on pollination biology dates back to the work of Sprengel. This book was conceived in his honour: some of his work is reprinted as the first chapter, and reviewed in historical context in the second. Both chapters are extremely interesting to read even today, and show how a simple question ('What are flowers for?') changed the way biologists think about plants. This led to a new level of understanding and a new set of questions about how plants mate, given that they are immobile, and to the surprising finding that not all hermaphrodites are self-fertilizing. This in turn led to research on the evolution of breeding systems. The book reviews our present understanding of how flowers and their pollinators interact, based on much more sophisticated approaches than were available to botanists in the past - such as the use of genetic markers in natural populations. The chapters illustrate an impressive set of clever methods, including techniques for following pollen movement (e.g. in the chapter by Fritz and Nilsson). This level of analysis can provide much-needed detail about events in nature that are not evident from simple observations alone. To take an example, it might appear obvious that having more flowers must increase plant attractiveness for animal pollinators. However, the interaction can be more complex than it first appears. A highly attractive male may, for example, suffer in fertility because pollinators would be less likely to carry pollen away to a female. Again, if outcrossing yields progeny of higher fitness than self-fertilization does, highly attractive individuals might tend to deposit their pollen on their own flowers (geitonogamy) and thus produce low-fitness progeny. A similar problem may confront self-incompatible plants if self-pollen clogs the stigmatic surfaces of the flowers and prevents them from achieving their potential seed yields. Elegant tests of such ideas are reviewed in the chapter by Allison Snow and colleagues on geitonogamy. The authors show that our expectation that geitonogamy is increased in plants with many flowers is confirmed in several species, suggesting that we have achieved a reasonable level of understanding of how plants and their pollinators interact. Other chapters discuss even more elaborate hypotheses, and present quite complex models that describe how pollination happens and what effects we should expect from experimental changes in flowers or inflorescences. If good agreement between the model and the results can be obtained (as is shown in Harder and Barrett's chapter), such expectations can be used in designing further experiments. The many techniques available are now fulfilling their promise in leading to a steady advance in our understanding of pollination biology. The final chapter of the book discusses this progress, and illustrates how pollination systems influence the evolution of breeding systems.

Changing flowers
Floral Biology: Studies on Floral Evolution in Animal-pollinated Plants edited by D.C. Lloyd and S.C.H. Barrett
Chapman & Hall, 1996. 59.00 hbk (xiv + 410 pages) ISBN 0 412 04341 6

Deborah Charleaworth
Dept of Ecologyand Evolution,Universityof Chicago, 1101 E 57th St, Chicago, IL 60637-1573,USA

Plants and people

Ethnobotany: Principles and Applications by CM. Cotton
John Wiley & Sons, 1996. 50.00 hbk, 24.95 pbk (ix + 424 pages) ISBN 0 471 96831 5.0 471 95537 X

Species diversity can make it difficult to develop a biological theory that has any general applications. Biologists can evade this difficulty by studying how different organisms and processes work, using particular model systems that eliminate much of the diversity. Alternatively, they can study the diversity itself, which often yields extraordinarily interesting natural history, but does not always lead to the necessary level of understanding that is required in evolutionary biology. In the case of plant reproduction, there is a long history of attempts to explain why there is such diversity in breeding systems - for example, why all species are not selffertilizing hermaphrodites. This area has received plenty of attention from theoreticians, and there is a rich body of theory that has the potential to answer many of the questions. However, there is a lack of empirical tests for these theoretical results, despite good knowledge of the taxonomic distributions of breeding systems. We have probably already identified most plants with dioecy and heterostyly, even when these are not immediately evident from morphology (though systems that require genetic tests, such as self-incompatibility, are still imperfectly known in most taxa). Nowadays, new breeding system discoveries are infrequent and exciting - for example, the recent convincing evidence for heterostyly in the daffodil family, described in the chapter by Barrett, Lloyd and Arroyo.

Ethnobotany has developed rapidly over the last few decades, and so it is perhaps remarkable that we have not seen a textbook before now. In writing Ethnobotany: Principles and Applications, Cath Cotton has not only plugged an obvious gap in the market with a useful introductory outline, but has accomplished something that is notoriously difficult, namely producing a balanced and coherent account of an essentially interdisciplinary subject. The book seeks to introduce the main areas of ethnobotany to an undergraduate audience, but it will be equally valuable for students and researchers at all levels wishing to familiarize themselves with different aspects of the field. For social scientists, the elementary descriptive botany and plant chemistry are useful, while the chapters on indigenous botanical knowledge and its organization will provide essential
December 1996,Vol.1, No.12

Copyright 1996 ElsevierScienceLtd. All rights reserved.1360 - 1385/96/$15.00

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