ALBERT

Description: BOURDY, G. Une approche de la médicine traditionnelle à Bukittinggi (Sumatra Quest). D.E.A. d’ecologie U.S.T.L. Montpellier. 1984. 55 pp. The results presented in this paper are based one some field work conducted in the Minangkabau region of Bukittinggi (Western Sumatra) during February and March 1984. Traditional medicine is approached through the description of medicinal plants, the way they are utilized, and the people who gather and prescribe them. Data have been collected while interviewing the ’dukuns’ (native doctors). For each medicinal plant synonyms, vernacular names in Bahasa and Minangkabau are given. Voucher specimens of 69 specimens of such medicinal plants were collected and are deposited at MPU.

Description: Survey of the flora of Bikini and other atolls before the atomic-bomb tests were made. The phytoplancton is excluded from the present carefully written and extensive analysis, which is most instructive to every student of tropical coral island floras. A general introduction furnishes an excellent view on Phanerogamic vegetation and land flora, the physical conditions of the islands, and the part played by different lements in coral building. The major part of the book is occupied by descriptions of the plants collected; marine Algae, of course, predominate. Several new spp. have been described e.g. in Halimeda, Rhipilia, Caulerpa, Pocockiella, Acrochaetium, Porolithion, Botryodiplodia and Fungi, etc. Latin diagnoses of new forms and species and a bibliography are given at the end. The book is exemplary illustrated and well-executed.

Description: BOURDY, G. Une approche de la m\xc3\xa9dicine traditionnelle \xc3\xa0 Bukittinggi (Sumatra Quest). D.E.A. d\xe2\x80\x99ecologie U.S.T.L. Montpellier. 1984. 55 pp.\nThe results presented in this paper are based one some field work conducted in the Minangkabau region of Bukittinggi (Western Sumatra) during February and March 1984. Traditional medicine is approached through the description of medicinal plants, the way they are utilized, and the people who gather and prescribe them. Data have been collected while interviewing the \xe2\x80\x99dukuns\xe2\x80\x99 (native doctors). For each medicinal plant synonyms, vernacular names in Bahasa and Minangkabau are given. Voucher specimens of 69 specimens of such medicinal plants were collected and are deposited at MPU.

Description: Survey of the flora of Bikini and other atolls before the atomic-bomb tests were made. The phytoplancton is excluded from the present carefully written and extensive analysis, which is most instructive to every student of tropical coral island floras. A general introduction furnishes an excellent view on Phanerogamic vegetation and land flora, the physical conditions of the islands, and the part played by different lements in coral building. The major part of the book is occupied by descriptions of the plants collected; marine Algae, of course, predominate. Several new spp. have been described e.g. in Halimeda, Rhipilia, Caulerpa, Pocockiella, Acrochaetium, Porolithion, Botryodiplodia and Fungi, etc.\nLatin diagnoses of new forms and species and a bibliography are given at the end. The book is exemplary illustrated and well-executed.

Description: As Prof. Bremekamp has dealt with the genus Pleiocraterium from the taxonomic point of view, I intend to supplement his exposition here with some observations on the ecology of these remarkable additions to the Malaysian mountain flora. Some of these observations have been included already in a general report on the results of the Losir expedition published in Dutch. As a further illustration I am giving two photographs taken from one of the two Sumatran species in its natural habitat. Altitude. Both species were found on the highest parts of the mountains only, viz. Pl. gentianifolium just below the summit of Mt Goh Lembuh, and Pl. sumatranum between our camp at the base of the central Peak of Mt Losir at c. 3250 m. and the summit of the latter at 3460 m. These two mountains lie rather far apart: Mt Losir is the highest top of the Barisan Range proper, whereas Mt Goh Lembuh is a more isolated mountain, rising c. 50 km. NNE of Mt Losir and separated from the latter by a wide depression. The two mountains also differ geologically.

Description: The affinity of the Malesian genus Lophopyxis has a checkered history, a survey of which was given by L.B. Holthuis & H.J. Lam, in Blumea 5 (1942) 205-208, fig. 7. It has been referred to Flacourtiaceae, Icacinaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Olacaceae, and Saxifragaceae. Hitherto no attention was paid to the similarity with Gouania in the Rhamnaceae, which it resembles in toothed leaves, presence of stipules, panicled spike-like inflorescences, and the occurrence of tendrils in these.

Description: In papers and manuscripts on tropical phytography I find a growing tendency to ”overdo accuracy”, with the negative effect that accuracy is underdone. Tropical phytography operates, of necessity, at a different level of accuracy in details than does temperate botany, because the aim is wider and the materials and field knowledge scantier. But as often has been demonstrated, if the second and third storey are begun before the first storey has been completed, such a wing of the house of science is unfit for inhabitation. I see it therefore as the present task of the tropical botanist to finish the first storey of knowledge, and of accuracy, for all groups. With this in mind, some thought should be given to the following considerations. In the first place there is again a growing custom with several to incorporate so much (often unnecessary or unwanted) detail in descriptions to obscure the important and really distinctive characters. Everybody can understand that, whereas a herbarium botanist may often be very glad to have 30 specimens collected during 150 years, which is a fraction of a fraction of the millions of specimens of the sum of the populations growing in nature during that period, it is a vainless attempt to encompass on the basis of three dozen specimens the complete polymorphism in great detail. If one wants to make such elaborate descriptions, one should split them into a diagnostic description followed by additional measurements and characters of secondary value. This is a compulsory courtesy against those who will consult such elaborate descriptions. With more collections coming in it is clear that there will be always minor deviations from the additional descriptive part, but more rarely in the diagnostic part; in the latter case one is becoming alert.

Description: Localizing specimens and mapping localities has always been a tedious and time-consuming task for which much depends on the data mentioned on the labels. It has been found a blessing if collectors mention on labels the latitude and longitude. If this is given in an exact way it comprises degrees and minutes, e.g. 6° 45’ S, 141° 30’ E. If no dot-map is provided this appears to be a slightly clumsy formula in print and the question arises whether such exact figures are really needed. In scanning a geographical map the minutes will hardly mean something unless one uses local small-scale maps, as one minute is only a little more than 2 km in the terrain. In Pretoria only the degrees are given, joined into one figure, preceding the collector / after the locality. This simplification is, I think, practical and useful.

Description: Harold St. John has (in Le Naturaliste Canadien 98, 1971, 571-580) given an evaluation of J.R. & G. Forster plants described in their Characteres generum which is newly dated to have been issued March 1, 1776. We feel induced to correct some inaccuracies. Gingidium montanum (l.c. 574, no. 21) — later transferred to Ligusticum as L. gingidium by Forster f., Prod. (1736) 22; DC., Prod. 4 (1830) 159, as an illegitimate homotypic synonym — is unnecessarily named as a new (superfluous) combination Angelica forsteriana St. John. Hooker f., Handb. New Zeal.Fl. (1867) 97, had this (according to the present Code, art. 72) correctly named Angelica gingidium, as because of the earlier Angelica montana Brot. (1804) he could not use the epithet montanum. For the rest Dawson (New Zeal.J.Bot. 5, 1967, 90) has reinstated the generic name Gingidium. He has still more recently changed the name Gingidium Forst., non Hill (1756), into Gingidia as Hill’s herbal has been said to be declared nomenclaturally valid.

Description: The entries have been split into five categories: a) Algae — b) Fungi & Lichens — c) Bryophytes — d) Pteridophytes — e) Spermatophytes & General subjects. — Books have been marked with an asterisk. The SEM-observation of plant material normally requires dehydrated, dry specimens coated with carbon or metal. Unfortunately, the standard drying methods (including the critical-point-drying-technique) often cause shrinking and deformation of the specimen surface; therefore, SEMstudies on plant ontogeny are rather difficult, material- and time-consuming. Experiments using deep-frozen specimens have been carried out in England and in the USA, but have proved not satisfying.