OPTIMA Newsletter 38

enefit by this booklet when planning their
trips. The proposed excursions cover a wide
range of habitats, from the seashore through
riversides and lakes to the slopes and summits
of the Apuan Alps and Apennines.
Topographical maps with drawn-in itineraries
provide good guidance (indications
of scales and walking distances would have
been useful, though). Many of the botanical
highlights to be expected are shown in attractive
pictures. At the end of each chapter,
the most noteworthy species are presented
individually, each with a short description
and further relevant details.
W.G.
45. 44BFilippina LANZA SANGIULIANO –
Disegni botanici delle Madonie. – Orto
Botanico, Palermo, 2005. 40 pages, 33
graphite drawings in facsimile; paper.
The author of the 33 charcoal drawings
here reproduced – simultaneously shown in
an exhibit at Palermo Botanic Garden in
December 2005 – is the daughter of Domenico
Lanza, lawyer, professor of botany,
and the Garden’s director for three years
(1921-1923). She came to the pictorial arts
in her mature age, and indeed, she did most
of the artwork here presented while in her
seventies. The 25 species she has portrayed
are common and characteristic plants of the
Madonie Mountains, both wild and cultivated.
She availed herself of artistic licence
in her work, looking at the essence not at
botanical detail, and never mind if oleander
leaves, in reality, are verticillate.
Jointly with several other, similar publications,
the present exhibition guide bears
witness to the remarkable and remarkably
manifold cultural and scientific activities
that the Palermo Botanic garden promotes
and develops under the impulsion of its Director,
Franco Raimondo.
W.G.
46. 45BHans Christian WEBER & Bernd
KENDZIOR – Flora of the Maltese Is-
Publications
lands. A field guide. – Margraf, Weikersheim,
2006 (ISBN 3-8236-1478-9).
IV + 383 pages, 635 colour photographs;
hard cover.
A wildflower book featuring a high
proportion of the species of the area covered
is always welcome. In the present case
coverage is about two thirds (530 of about
800 indigenous species). This means that
the authors have had to take care of the
many “unpalatable”, unobtrusive plants:
grasses, sedges and the like, which they did
with considerable photographic skill. Extreme
close-ups are, in fact, their special
field of excellence, and commendably, many
of the species are represented twice at different
scales. Some of the rare and little
known endemic species are not easy to
portray, an example being the submerged
aquatic Zannichellia melitensis – in the photograph
of which the authors may take justified
pride.
All told, the quality of the pictures and
print is good average, and the accompanying
texts are well written and informative. The
authors’ concern for conservation of natural
habitats and plant diversity is commendable.
Their adopting a phylogenetic family sequence,
underpinned with a cladogram and
recognising orders and subclasses, is a bit
overstrung for a book of this kind. On the
negative side, the nomenclature is sometimes
outdated, some names are incorrectly
spelled, and a few obvious misidentifications
do occur, e.g. in Carex. The table with English;
German and Maltese equivalents of
scientific plant names is a particularly valuable
addition.
W.G.
47. 46BJoe SULTANA & Victor FALZON (ed.)
– Wildlife of the Maltese Islands. –
Birdlife Malta and Nature Trust, Malta,
1996, reprinted 2002 (ISBN 99909-
66-02-1). 336 pages, illustrations in
colour and black-and-white; laminated
cover.
2009 OPTIMA Newsletter No. 38 (27)