Synthesis of the North American Flora. Version 1.0 by John T. Kartesz, Christopher A. Meacham

2 Pages·2000·1.5 MB·English

by  Review By: Ronald L Hartman

2000] REVIEWS 207
most serious omission from the book is a synthetic (by Kartesz) combined with highly functional soft-
chapter at the end. This would have increased the ware for accessing the database (by Meacham).
value of the book immensely. If we are to make Thus, a slick and versatile product. The cover in
progress in dealing with issues such as the interface thejewel case is a six page insert. Included is "No-
between ecology and land development, we as sci- menclatural Innovations" with 41 new combination
entists need to make sure that we ourselves inter- (see International Code of Botanical Nomenclature
face effectively. Only by communicating clearly (Saint Louis Code), 2000; Recommendation 30A.1.
and concisely about these issues with the people Ex. 1). Installation of the product is simple. The
who are making and regulating development deci- "Overview of Basic Functions" in the help menu
sions will we have any hope of changing the way can be printed for immediate reference or accessed
things happen. Most developers and regulators will as needed.
not read the papers in this book, but they are the As the title indicates, this work covers North
ones that we most need to engage with. Maybe if America north of Mexico. Treated are all continen-
there is to be a third conference in this series, that tal states and the District of Columbia for the
is the issue on which it should concentrate. U.S.A., all provinces of Canada with Newfound-
— land displayed separate from Labrador and the
RichardJ. Hobbs, School ofEnWvAironmental Science, Northwest Territories by administrative district
Murdoch University, Murdoch, 6150, Australia (Keewatin, Mackenzie, and Franklin), the islands of
[email protected] St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Greenland. Further-
more, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Ha-
Literature Cited waii are also included.
The primary screen contains three nomenclature
Keelleayn,dJ.deEv.el(eodp.m).en1t99i3n.CIalnftierrofranciea.beStowuetehnerencoCalloigfyorannida windows on the left with lists by family, genus,
Academy of Sciences, Los Angeles. infrageneric name (specific, subspecific, varietal ep-
Myers, N., R. A. Mittermeier, C. G. Mittermeier, G. A. ithets), respectively. A box above each list allows
B. DA Fonseca and J. Kent. 2000. Biodiversity hot- one to type the first few letters of a name and then
spots for conservation priorities. Nature 403:853- click on it, or one can scroll and click on a name
858. (options, with common or contrived names, au-
Sala, O. E., F. S. I. Chapin, J. J. Armesto, E. Berlow, thors, hybrids, synonyms, and either in checklist or
J. Bloomfield, R. Dirzo, E. Huber-Sanwald, L. F. thesaurus format). Or the family window can be
Huenneke, R. B. Jackson, A. Kjnzig, R. Leemans, circumvented by selecting the "All Genera" op-
D. M. Lodge, H. A. Mooney, M. Oesterheld, N. L.
Pope, M. T. Sykes, B. H. Walker, M. Walker and tion. For the area covered, 28,033 taxa are recog-
D. H. Wall. 2000. Global biodiversity scenarios for nized. Nearly 72,000 scientific names and syn-
the year 2100. Science 287:1770-1174. onyms and nearly 35,000 distribution maps for taxa
at all ranks are included. When a taxon at any level
is highlighted, its distribution appears in bright
Synthesis ofthe North American Flora. Version 1.0. By green (yellow for states where rare, pink if consid-
John T. Kartesz and Christopher A. Meacham. 1999. ered noxious, etc.) on the map in the Geography
North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North window, upper right on screen. When a unique tax-
Carolina at Chapel Hill. In cooperation with The Nature on is selected, passing the cursor over a political
Conservancy, NRCS, USDA, USFWS, USDI. $495.00. unit or "region" within its range causes a "flyover
ISBN 1-889065-05-6. window" to appear with indication ofbibliographic
reference, source of voucher, etc., on which a rec-
Minimums requirements, a Pentium 90 MHz ord is based. By highlighting a political unit under
class processor, 32 MB RAM, 25 MB free hard "Query," the contents of the three nomenclature
drive space, SVGA display (minimum resolution, windows are adjusted so as to include only the taxa
800 by 600, 1280 by 1024 recommended) with 16 documented for it. A breakdown of the included
colors, Microsoft Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, or 2000 taxa may be found under "Summary" in the Attri-
operating system, CD-ROM drive for installation. butes window, lower right on the screen. As an ex-
This is a most impressive work. An update of, ample, Texas with 6022 unique taxa; 199 families,
and an expansion on Kartesz 1994, A Synonymized 1390 genera, 5320 species, 395 subspecies, 1254
Checklist ofthe VascularFlora ofthe United States, varieties, 77 hybrids for a total of 8635 taxa at all
Canada, and Greenland, Second edition. Volume 1, hierarchical levels.
Checklist and 2, Thesaurus, Timber press, Portland. Also in the geography window, operation buttons
Unlike its predecessor, near-instant answers, com- allow the set union (+) of two or more regions
parisons, and analyses can be obtained to a multi- (e.g., union of Texas + New Mexico + Arizona)
tude of questions within and beyond the scope of to give all taxa found therein; set intersection (*)
the printed work. It contains a comprehensive da- for a list of taxa found, say in Colorado as well as
tabase with a high level of accuracy on the taxon- Wyoming (intersection of Colorado * Wyoming);
omy, nomenclature, phytogeography, and biologi- and set subtraction (or "not,"—) is used to cal-
cal attributes of the North American vascular flora culate the set of taxa unique to one political unit
MADRONO
208 [Vol. 47
when compared to one or more other such units moved into Microsoft Word 95 or 98, Corel Word-
(e.g., taxa found in Texas but not in New Mexico Perfect Suite 8, etc. All of the above and more. A 1 i
or Arizona). Also, "Composite Regions" may be MB demonstration version for Windows may be '
used to select groups of states or provinces such as downloaded at <http://www.bonap.org/>.
i
the Northeast states, the Rockies, or the Appala- I must confess, I have had a review copy ofthis
chians. work on my computerfornearly a year. I have used
Also in the Attributes window, is a standard set of it numerous times almost daily while working on a
character states for the plant highlighted. ForPoapa- checklist of the vascular plants of Colorado with |
lustris L., the following features appear: flowering synonymy and on a list of exotic plants for Wyo- {
plant, monocot, grass, perennial, native, alpine to sub- ming. Now, finally, a review. ;
alpine, wetland, herbaceous, economic importance, Future plants for the Synthesis include county-
majorrange plant, andoccurrence (e.g., nationalparks level occurrence data for the U.S., illustrations and
and forests and all political units where documented). colored photos of all taxa available, and a random i
It is also possible to use set union, set intersect, and access key to all North American species. With
set subtraction in combination with a region and one Kartesz's productivity and expertise and Mea-
or more attribute characters (e.g., intersection forCal- cofhafmu'tsure"meadgitiico,n"s,IliaknexliyouosnlyDVawDa.it the appearance
ifomia*woody*native*monocots results in 20 unique
—
taxa). Ifyou wish to save the results, say a search of Ronald L. Hartman, Rocky Mountain Herbarium,
all unique taxa with synonyms and authors by family Department of Botany, University of Wyoming, Laramie
for one or a group of states, they can readily be 82071-3165.