Vascular transport in plants * Holbrook NM, Zwieniecki MA. eds. 2005. * Amsterdam: Elsvier, * Academic Press. {pound}62.99 * (hardback). 564 pp.

This comprehensivecollection of 26 papers on all aspects of function and structureof vascular tissues will be of interest for anyone working inplant structure/function generally, or to specialists dealingwith physiology of water and sugar movement, leaf functions,wood anatomy and ecophysiology. The work of 52 contributors,including the two editors whose     

The plant cell wall. * Rose JKC, ed 2003. * Oxford: CRC Press. {pound}99.50 (hardback). * 381 pp.

Cell walls have long been recognized as important and uniquefeatures of plant cells, contributing not only to the architectureof plant organs but also to the control of growth, to the exclusionof pathogens and to the production and transmission of signallingmolecules. Gross measurements of plant cell composition establishedlong ago that the plant devotes a large     

Ecological genetics: design, analysis and application. * Lowe A, Harris S, Ashton P. 2004. * Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. * {pound}29.99 (softback). 344 pp

This book introduces readers toa whole range of topics associated with ecological geneticsby covering such subjects as genetic markers and sampling, geneticdiversity, gene flow, hybridization and phylogeny construction.Within these chapters     

Margaret Mee's Amazon. Diaries of an artist explorer. * Margaret Mee. 2003. * Woodbridge Suffolk, UK: Antique Collectors' Club. * {pound}29{middle dot}50 (hardback). 320 pp, 400 colour illustrations

‘Delight’ said CharlesDarwin in his diaries in 1832, ‘is a weak term to expressthe feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wanderedby himself in a Brazilian forest’. These feelings musthave been those which drove Margaret Mee to explore the Brazilianjungles on numerous expeditions between 1958 and 1964, creatingwonderful pictures despite all kinds of difficulties encounteredin this hostile world. And these feelings were also those Ihad when I read this book: delight about her precise drawingsand life-like paintings, which are extremely expressive from     

The Biogeochemistry of Submerged Soils. * Kirk, G. 2004. * Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. {pound}100 (hardcover). 304 pp.

One can learn a lot about thegeochemistry of submerged soils in this book by Kirk. However,it is not, as the title implies, focused on the biogeochemistryof all submerged soils. In Chapter 1 Kirk gives a very briefoverview     

Floral biology, pollination and fertilisation in temperate zone fruit species and grape. * Kozma P, Nyeki J, Soltesz M, Szabo Z. 2003. * Budapest: Akademiai Kiado. $98 (hardback).621 pp.

The primary focus of this book is to discuss the floral biologyof the fruit crops including apple, grape, Ribes, Rubus, strawberry,the stone fruits and several     

Ethics for life scientists. * Korthals M, Bogers RJ. eds. 2005. * Berlin: Springer. $59{middle dot}95 (paperback). 236 pp.

The motivationfor producing this book is summed up in its last chapter byone of the editors: ‘Life sciences concentrate on lifeand death; this simple statement stands for most of the urgentethical problems these sciences are confronted with ... Thelife sciences cannot escape from ethical issues, controversies,dilemmas even ... In this collection of papers we have intensivelydiscussed the new and often uncertain aspects of     

Roots: the dynamic interface between plants and the Earth. * Abe J, ed. 2003. * Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. * {euro}165 (hardback). 460 pp

All but five of the 46 contributionsin this symposium volume have been published already as a specialissue in Volume 255 of Plant and Soil in 2003. They are reproducedin exactly the same format and with the same pagination as inthe journal. To anyone who has access to Plant and Soil thisbook would therefore not be a sensible purchase. This is allthe more true because the editor has not provided any commentaryon the papers or subdivided them     

An introduction to plant structure and development * Beck CB. 2005. * Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. {pound}30.00 (hardback). 464 pp.

This book has beenwritten primarily as a text for a senior plant anatomy course.The initial phrase ‘An introduction to’ is somewhatmisleading as a student would need to have some elementary knowledgeof botany as well as cell structure and physiology to followthe information and the ideas without difficulty. The authordoes     

Principles of soil and plant water relations. * Kirkham, M. B. 2005. * Boston: Elsevier Academic Press. $79.95 (hardback). 500 pp.

The word order of the title isan important clue to the focus and main strength of Kirkham'sbook, which is its exploration of water movement in the soiland how it is measured. Plant water relations take a back seat,accounting for approximately one-third of the 27 chapters. Unlikethe title, the book's cover image of a savannah-like tree issomewhat misleading, for the examples, methods and instrumentationdiscussed in the text are chiefly agronomic, with an emphasison corn (maize) and wheat. The book's preface     

Photosynthetic rate and dynamic environment. * Kazutoshi Yabuki, 2004. * Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. * {euro}50 (hardback). 130 pp.

In photosynthesis, CO₂ enters theleaf from the atmosphere and moves to the active site of thecarboxylating enzyme, to be bound in an organic compound. Theprocess is largely diffusional and the pathway, although complicatedin detail, is usually split into sections related to differentanatomic structures, such as chloroplasts, cell walls, intercellularair space, stomatal pores and, finally the leaf boundary layer.Biologists have mainly been concerned with those sections thatare embedded within the leaf, considering the boundary layeras something external, not under the control by biological processes.Well, light is also not controlled     

Systematic botany of flowering plants, 2nd edn. * Spichiger R-E, Savolainen V, Figeat M, Jeanmond D. eds. 2004. * Enfield, New Hampshire: Science Publishers, Inc. $58(softback). 413 pp. plus CD-ROM.

Spichiger et al. introduce a studentwithout too much botanical knowledge to the diversity of floweringplants in this text, which is a translation from the Frenchof the second edition, published in 2002. Five brief introductorychapters lead to the main part of the book, short and well-illustratedaccounts of 113 families. There is also a glossary and an identificationkey to tropical families; a taxon index and a CD-ROM completethe book. The CD-ROM includes 350 photographs of the familiesdescribed, separate lists of medicinal and non-medicinal usesof plants     

Plant nutritional genomics * Broadley MR, White PJ. eds. 2005. * Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. {pound}115 (hardback). 321 pp.

Plant nutritionis ultimately an applied subject that seeks to understand theprocesses and mechanisms that underpin the uptake, assimilationand internal redistribution of nutrients by plants and thento use this information to improve the yield or quality of harvestedplant parts, be they grains, storage roots or leafy vegetables.The subject now also encompasses the understanding of the responsesof plants to nutrient toxicities (e.g. salinity) as well asnew topics such as metal ‘hyperaccumulation’ and     

The plant cytoskeleton in cell differentiation and development. Annual Plant Reviews, volume 10. * Hussey PJ, ed. 2004. * Oxford: Blackwell Publishing/Boca Raton: CRC Press. * {pound}99{middle dot}50 (hardback). 325 pp

Over 40 years ago, in what is surelyone of the most famous ‘throw-away lines’ in botany,Ledbetter and Porter (1963) suggested that the similar orientationsof cytoplasmic microtubules and structures considered to becellulose microfibrils in the cell wall was not coincidental.This notion led almost single-handedly to the present and enduringinterest amongst certain plant cell biologists in understandingthe role of microtubules in wall formation. And as a resultof this intense interest in such matters, it has become clearthat microtubules are not only ‘just one’ componentamongst an ever-expanding array of     

Sulfur transport and assimilation in plants: regulation, interaction and signaling. * Davidian J-C, Grill D, De Kok LJ, Stulen I, Hawkesford MJ, Schnug E, Rennenberg H, eds. 2003. * Leiden: Backhuys Publishers. {euro}96 (hardback). 393 pp.

Sulphur metabolism of plants (I'll stick with British Englishspelling here) has always received less attention and attractedless funding than has research on nitrogen and phosphorus. Oneof the most important reasons no doubt is that, unlike nitrogenand phosphorus, sulphur availability to plants was rarely aproblem. As the post-World War II use of fertilizer     

Instant notes in plant biology, 2nd edn. * Lack A, Evans D. 2005. * Oxford: Taylor and Francis. {pound}18.99 (paperback). 351 pp.

The ‘InstantNotes’ series from Bios will probably be familiar to manyreaders. The series' success is evident in the second editionsthat are appearing, e.g. the current volume—albeit nowunder the Taylor and Francis label. Content This book does what it says on the label; it provides noteson (probably) all of the topics within the compass of present-day‘plant biology’. Primarily, it deals with anatomy,growth and development, physiology, reproduction, and economicuses and ecology of flowering plants (angiosperms). However,it does cover other phyla of the Kingdom Plantae (principallyin two ‘taxonomy/evolution’ sections), and algae(along     

Seeds handbook: biology, production, processing and storage. 2nd edn. * Desai BB. 2004. * New York: Marcel Dekker.{pound}115 (hardback). 787 pp.

This book comprisesfour parts, the first three as identified in the title, anda fourth described as newer seed biotechnologies. Almost halfof the book is devoted to seed production,     

Plant ecology. * Schulze ED, Beck E, Muller-Hohenstein K. 2005. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer. $89{middle dot}95 (hardback). 702 pp.

This book (a translation fromSchulze et al., 2002) is one of the most comprehensive textbooksof plant ecology so far. The authors aim to ‘for the firsttime bring together and clearly organize the large subdisciplinesof plant ecology’ and, to a large extent they have succeeded.The book is well written, and its more than 500 illustrationsare beautifully laid out and well chosen to help the readerunderstand the theory. It is clearly suitable not only