Molecular Biology

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York. $18.95. xii + 255 p. + 4 pl.; ill.; index. ISBN: 0-688-08350-1. [Some chapters have appeared elsewhere.] 1989. An equally appropriate title for this book would have been "A Random Walk through Botany." The author selected several topics of interest to him and wrote about them in a more personal manner than is usual for scientific books. This tends to facilitate reading and should make the book attractive to the general public or to those with interests similar to Bernhardt's. The foreword suggests that "any reader will be stimulated and intellectually enriched by this book, written as it is in a lively and engaging style . . ." (p. ix). This may be so; the style is different, lively, for the most part, and sometimes engaging, but it also crosses into silliness in referring to the "Christian name" of a genus (p. 104) (are there genera that have Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu names, or only botanical ones?). The remark about Charles and Di on page 111 is offensive and unnecessary; it belongs in a tabloid. Aside from the style, I found the book to be somewhat unfocused and disjointed as it meanders through several unrelated topics, although the division into parts alleviates this problem. An error (or perhaps misstatement) that caught my attention is the one suggesting that plant hormones are transported in the xylem. As might be expected, I was primarily interested in the chapters that deal with orchids (Part 4, Those Unnatural Flowers). The discussion on conservation (pp. 167, 168) is very good. So, too, is the general approach, but these chapters are not free of errors. A few examples: (1) It is the case that under natural conditions orchid seeds germinate only following mycorrhizal infection; it is not accurate to state that "orchid plantlets survive only after certain strains of fungi invade their cells" (p. 193). (2) Lewis Knudson was a plant physiologist, not a biochemist. (3) There is no need to presume that Cattleya urantiaca "flourishes by self pollination" (p. 179) because its floral biology "appears to have altered under urban conditions" in San Salvador (p. 179). Lewis Knudson provided a detailed description of the self-pollination mechanism of this species as far back as 1956. It is simply possible that only the self-pollinating form survived in the city. Self-pollination mechanisms in orchids are not uncommon and have enabled several species to become naturalized in areas to which they were introduced by growers. (4) The first successful cross between two species of Calanthe was produced byJohn Dominy, not in 1865, as stated here, but in 1853 or 1854. An annotated bibliography is a good idea, but in this case the list of additional readings is highly selective and insufficient, both in term of numbers and relevancy. The index is adequate, but not complete. Bernhardt's revelations, even if not unique, are interesting for the most part, and I hope that a second edition or printing will include all of the necessary corrections, additions and omissions. Bernhardt can write well and his book may become popular with the general public. This will place on him the heavy responsibilities of accuracy and focus, neither of which are fully discharged in this edition. JOSEPH ARDITTI, Developmental & Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, California