834

J. Phycol.

38,

834–836 (2002)

BOOK REVIEWS

Freshwater Red Algae of the World

Kumano, S. 2002.

Freshwater Red Algae of the

World.

Biopress Publications, Bristol, U.K. 185 pp.

�

illustrations. L59.00 (

�

US $85.29). ISBN 0-948737-60-3.

At first glance, I thought “Wow, all the Rhodophytain one book?!” Even better, upon more careful exami-nation of title, however, I realized that this was a bookdevoted

entirely

to my favorite subject FRESHWATERred algae. Originally published in Japanese and nowtranslated into English, this book is a compilation ofall the red algal taxa known to occur in freshwaters,including such taxa as

Polysiphonia

, typically found inmarine habitats. Dr. Kumano has assembled an im-pressive bibliography of the recent research on the al-pha taxonomy of these organisms. Throughout thebook, there are numerous good illustrations and pho-tographic plates, most of which are not new but aregathered from the original published research inwhich many of the taxa were described. The contentis divided into four parts: a taxonomic listing of alltaxa presented, a short history of research on these or-ganisms, a key to the genera, and a section with de-tailed descriptions of all species. For those that mightthink that this would be a slim volume, it is 375 pageswith 211 infrageneric taxa described.

The taxonomic listing at the beginning of the bookis very useful to the reader, by placing these diverseorganisms from 11 orders into a framework. In addi-tion, the pages for the descriptions are listed, makingit very convenient to look up particular species andclosely related organisms. Like any taxonomic treat-ment, the grouping of taxa reflects the author’s viewson the systematics of the organisms. For example, un-der the

Batrachospermum

section

Contorta

, there arefive subsections, which would appear to be splittinghairs and are not used by many researchers in thefield. I must admit, however, that the systematics ofthe genus

Batrachospermum

are very complex and havenot been simplified by recent molecular analyses.

The short history presented next in the book is verymuch worth reading, especially for students new tothe study of systematics. This section starts with Lin-naeus and moves through the taxonomic changesmade by researchers such as Agardh, Rabenhorst, andPascher and Schiller. Important discoveries pertain-ing to reproduction and life history, such as thosemade by Bornet and Thuret, Schmitz, and Magne areoutlined. This section is replete with references to piv-otal papers that would allow the reader to delve fur-ther into subjects that could only be highlighted be-cause of space and scope constraints of this work. Ifound the paragraph on books published by Japaneseauthors to be of particular interest to me because I amnot as familiar with that literature.

The key to genera is surprisingly simple with onlyone or two characteristics per dichotomy. At first, Ithought that it could never work, but after goingthrough the key, it would appear that this might besufficient. This key, however, would not be useful foridentification if one is unfamiliar with the organisms,as for some of the dichotomies, it would be difficult todiscern the exact feature to examine without priorknowledge of the organisms. This is probably not theintent of the key.

In the description section, which is the bulk of thebook, the genera are arranged taxonomically by or-der. For each taxon, a detailed description and refer-ences to the pertinent literature are given. In addi-tion, illustrations and photographic plates show salientfeatures of each species. These plates are clearly markedwith the work from which they were reproduced. In-formation on the type specimen, type location, anddistribution are also presented. It is disappointing,however, that for some of the distribution records ref-erences are provided, but for others this valuable in-formation is lacking.

My only criticism is that there are sections of the au-thor’s systematic treatment that should have been clar-ified. For example, the author states that “. . . invalidlyproposed the order Thoreales to accommodate thetwo recognized genera,

Thorea

and

Nemalionopsis.

”However, there is no reason or reference given to backthis claim. Again, in the section on the family Compso-pogonaceae and pertaining to

Compsopogonopsis

and

Compsopogon

, the author states “Rintoul, Sheath & Vis(1998) . . . and this result suggests that these generashould be synonymised.” This suggestion was formal-ized in Rintoul, Sheath & Vis (1999), which is in the lit-erature-cited section of the book, but not mentioned.In addition, numerous species of

Compsopogon

thathave been synonymized are included as separate spe-cies. I point out this case not because I think that theauthor should have deleted these taxa, but rather itwould have been better for the author to discuss thecontroversies such as he did in the section on the fam-ily Thoreaceae.

The strength of this book is its inclusiveness. Allfreshwater red taxa described, especially in the last 30years, are incorporated. This is the primary reason tohave this book in your library and why it is in mine; itbrings together research from papers scattered through-out the literature putting the information about alltaxa in one place where it can be easily compared andcontrasted.

Morgan L. Vis

Department of Environmental and Plant BiologyOhio UniversityAthens, Ohio, USA 45701

835

BOOK REVIEW

Plant Resources of South-East Asia No. 15(1). Cryptogams: Algae

Prud’homme van Reine, W. F. & Trono, G. C. Jr.[Eds.] 2001.

Plant Resources of South-East Asia No.15(1). Cryptogams: Algae.

Backhuys Publishers, Leiden,The Netherlands. 318 pp. 90 Euros (approx. US$85).Hardcover (ISBN 90-5782-096-X). Paperback editionfor developing countries (ISBN 979-8316-41-X) availablefrom Prosea Network Office, P.O. Box 332, Bogor 16122,

Indonesia; “much cheaper”.

Useful algae have been the subject of a series of inter-national symposia and several well-known global summa-ries since the 1950s (Chapman 1950, 1970, Levring et al.1969, Hoppe et al. 1979, Chapman and Chapman 1980,Lembi & Waaland 1988, Critchley & Ohno 1998, amongothers).

Plant Resources of South-East Asia No. 15(1). Crypto-gams: Algae

is a fascinatingly different compilation in thatit combines detailed local information and current liter-ature with basic structure, life history, and ecology infor-mation. A 60-page introduction by Prud’homme vanReine surveys uses of algae as context for the detailed re-ports that follow. Seventy articles, mostly on genera orspecies, arranged alphabetically, describe algae (mostlyseaweeds) from

Acanthophora muscoides

to

Valonia aegagro-pila.

The book is part of a project by the Prosea Founda-tion, an international program to document Plant Re-sources of South-East Asia. The project includes anelectronic database as well as a series of 20 comprehen-sive compilations organized by commodity. Earlier vol-umes have included pulses, edible fruits and nuts, etc.

The introduction first surveys the commercial usesof seaweeds, then summarizes the uses of algae countryby country. Information has been collected from Indo-nesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar(Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam; the author found nodata on seaweed use in PNG, Brunei, or Cambodia,which are also in Prosea’s region. The next two sec-tions, Botany and Ecology, are too short to give morethan a glimpse of the key characteristics and importantabiotic factors but may yet be useful for the many read-ers not already familiar with algae. Sections on exploi-tation/cultivation and harvesting/processing usefullyfocus on practices and statistics from South-East Asia,especially for agarophytes and carrageenophytes. Thisintroductory literature survey has an extensive list ofreferences (at the back of the book), in addition to thereferences provided with each taxon in the treatment.

Each article has a parallel organization, listing taxo-nomic details, vernacular names, origin and geographicdistribution, uses, production, properties, botanical de-scription and ecological notes, propagation, harvest-ing, handling, and prospects for future utilization. Forthe major commercial species, this text organization issubdivided or expanded and may include sections ondiseases and pests and on genetic resources. Refer-

ences are listed at the end of each section but unfor-tunately are not specifically cited in the text. Sectionreferences generally are not in the list at the end ofthe book, but readers will need to turn there to dis-cover the full citations for articles in the Taxonomy ofEconomic Seaweeds series.

The amount of information on each species varieswidely, and the lengths of the articles reflect this. Forexample, there are 27 pages on

Graciliaria

and severalparticular species of that genus, and 17 pages on the

Eucheuma

/

Betaphycus

/

Kappaphycus

complex (out ofabout 170 pages in this section). At the other end ofthe spectrum, an article surveys the bluegreen algae inaddition to articles on

Arthrospira

,

Nostoc

, and

Brachytri-chia quoyi.

Some taxa are included only on the strengthof their being used in salads in some locales (

Scinaiahormoides

;

Valonia aegagropila

) or as a traditional medi-cine of unknown efficacy (

Acetabularia

, see below), butit is probably worth documenting these uses.

Ceratodic-tyon spongiosum

is included, although it has no knownuses, because it lives symbiotically with a sponge, andsponges generally are good sources of pharmaceuticals.

The taxonomy is current, and the editors and au-thors have a wealth of experience in the region. Fromthis perspective, the book should be authoritative, as in-deed it is presented. Nevertheless, sometimes-strangefactoids sprinkled throughout the book suggest thatsources have occasionally been copied uncritically. Thisis the more troublesome because, in the specific arti-cles, particular assertions are not referenced. Someinformation has evidently been gathered from localcontacts, some is from published reports, and onecannot tell which is which. For instance, after we aretold that

Acetabularia major

is used along the northcoast of Java as a medicine against gall stones and kid-ney stones, the author asserts that this is probably be-cause of the ability of the rhizoids to secrete acids.While this might be true, the bald assertion leaves meincredulous, and none of the four publications listedseems likely to provide supporting evidence.

Who will use this book? The target audience is re-source managers in developing countries and in thedeveloped countries that support them. These peoplemay know little about marine algae and their tropicalhabitats, so the inclusion of biological information onthe species will be important. In addition, the book isa must for local phycologists and phycoculturists (avery small number of people, as the book points out!).For them the availability of a cheap paperback editionis essential! For most phycologists, this book is proba-bly too specialized to be worth the full price, but as adatabase it is useful. If other regional surveys (e.g.Guiry and Blunden 1991) eventually become availableonline, we might one day see a distributed database ofglobal utility, with the different regional databases ac-cessed through a single bioinformatics search engine.

836

BOOK REVIEW

Christopher S. Lobban

Division of Natural SciencesUniversity of GuamMangilao GU 92923, USA

Chapman, V. J. 1950.

Seaweeds and Their Uses.

Methuen, London,287 pp.

Chapman, V. J. 1970.

Seaweeds and Their Uses.

2nd ed. Methuen,London, 304 pp.

Chapman, V. J. & Chapman, D. J. 1980.

Seaweeds and Their Uses.

3rded. Chapman and Hall, London, 334 pp.

Critchley, A. T. & Ohno, M. (Eds.). 1998.

Seaweed Resources of theWorld

. Japan International Cooperation Agency, Nagai, Yoko-suka, Japan, 431 pp.

Guiry, M. D. & Blunden, G. (Eds.). 1991.

Seaweed Resources in Eu-rope: Uses and Potential

. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, UK,432 pp.

Hoppe, H. A., Levring, T. & Tanaka, Y. (Eds.). 1979.

Marine Algae inPhamaceutical Science

. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 807 pp.Lembi, C. A. & Waaland, J. R. (Eds.). 1988.

Algae and Human Affairs.

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 590 pp.Levring, T., Hoppe, H. A. & Schmidt, O. J. 1969.

Marine Algae. ASurvey of Research and Utilization

. Cram, de Gruyter, Hamburg,421 pp.