OPTIMA Newsletter 38

mainly because of their activity there, but all
scientifically active in the 19 th century, and
many of them famous. In the order of their
dates of birth, which range from 1744 to
1875, they are: Batt, Gallesio, Viviani, Bertoloni,
Turio, De Notaris, Casaretto, Baglietto,
Delpino, Giacomo Doria, Bicknell, Antonio
Piccone (with his great-granduncle
Gian Maria), Penzig, and Béguinot. For
each, an account of their life and work is
provided, often extensive and with plentiful,
carefully researched detail (allowing for
some fallout as the initial uninformative chat
on Batt).
The paper on collections and herbaria
is, however, disappointing. One would have
hoped to find concrete data there, in particular
on the amount of destruction caused by
the Second World War, and on which parts
of the collections were saved (and how) –
but there is nothing on the sort, and the
losses are treated in such cursory, hidden
manner as if they were shameful and best
ignored.
W.G.
148. 147BSulejman REDžIć & Samir ĐUG (ed.)
– “Plant resources in the creation of
new values”. Third International Balkan
Botanical Congress, Sarajevo, 18-
24 May 2003. Book of abstracts. – Center
for Ecology and Natural Resources,
Faculty of Science, University of Sarajevo,
2003 (ISBN 9958-9281-2-4). [8] +
429 pages; laminated cover.
The previous (second) Balkan Botanical
Congress was held in Istanbul in May 2000
(see OPTIMA Newslett. 36: (47). 2002).
Three years later, exactly as promised, Sulejman
Redžić hosted number three. The abstracts
volume testifies to the excellent, international
attendance, dominated as is natural
by participants from SE Europe.
The Congress programme included 14
plenary lectures and 8 broadly defined symposia,
each with 1-2 keynote lectures, several
short talks, and associated poster pres-
Publications
entations. The symposium titles were: Balkan
flora and vegetation; Biodiversity: conservation
and management; Biosystematics,
taxonomy and evolution; Plant geography
and vegetation science; Structure and physiology;
Phytochemistry, natural products and
ethnobotany; Genetics, genetic engineering
and biotechnology; and Ecology and environmental
botany. Abstracts are included for
100 talks (27 plenary or keynote lectures)
and 289 poster presentations, with an overall
authorship of 289.
W.G.
149. 148BPanayotis DIMOPOULOS, Erwin BERG-
MEIER, Milan CHYTRÝ, John ROD-
WELL, Joop SCHAMINÉE & Karle
SÝKORA (ed.) – European oak woodlands:
past, present and future. Proceedings
of the 13 th EVS Workshop at
Ioannina, Greece, 16-20 April 2004.
[Botanika Hronika (ISSN 0253-6064),
18(1).] – Ergastêrio Botanikês, Panepistêmio
Patrôn, Patra, 2005. 316 pages,
black-and-white illustrations, tables; laminated
cover.
The European Vegetation Survey workshop
on oak woods in Ioannina, NW
Greece, was attended by 133 participants
from 13 European and 4 extra-European
countries.
There are 23 papers in this symposium
volume, two of them of a general, introductory
nature: Sandro Pignatti’s thoughts
on the European Vegetation Survey and its
ongoing struggle with uncertainties and inconsistencies
of vegetation classification; and
Costas Thanos’ analysis of Theophrastos’
works with respect to the oaks there mentioned,
which can be equated with 9 of the
11 currently known Greek oak species. The
remaining papers are of a more special nature.
Most of them concern the oak woods of
Greece and adjacent countries (Albania, Bulgaria
and W Anatolia).
W.G.
2009 OPTIMA Newsletter No. 38 (77)