OPTIMA Newsletter 38

Publications
The book lists 3201 taxa found in the
wild state in Sicily and on its surrounding
islets, not counting those doubtfully present,
or extinct, or only cultivated. In case of
doubt the authors opt for splitting rather than
lumping, and they do not neglect named
varieties, exceptionally even formae, their
basic philosophy being that no potentially
useful information should be lost. Even so,
their approach can be called reasonably synthetic
when compared to that of Lojacono,
the author of the most recent Flora of Sicily,
who recognised no less than 4227 Sicilian
taxa. As that too often neglected five-volume
Flora is now completely out of date, it is
little wonder that almost 50 new names and
combinations were now needed. They include
three newly described infraspecific
taxa, in Erica, Fraxinus, and Papaver.
This Catalogue has been written with
the purpose of serving those who explore
and safeguard the botanical diversity of Sicily.
Part of that service consists in pointing
at unsolved problems, whetting the observer’s
scepticism, eliciting the user’s contradiction
and critical response. In this, I
believe, it will succeed.
W.G.
67. 66BLuigi MOSSA, Riccardo GUARINO &
M. Caterina FOGU – La componente
terofitica della flora della Sardegna.
Forme di crescita, ecologia, corologia e
sinsistematica. [Rendiconti Seminario
Fac. Sci. Univ. Cagliari (ISSN 0370-
727X), 73, Suppl. 2.] – Seminario della
Facoltà di Scienze, Università degli
Studi, Cagliari, 2003 (ISBN 964-473-
195-6). [4] + 209 pages, map, 4 graphs
(2 in colour), 2 tables; paper.
The authors provide a commented inventory
of “annual” taxa (985, corresponding
to 943 different species) found or reported
to be present in Sardinia. The list is
based on a compilation from Italian national
Floras, recent floristic and phytosociological
literature, and the authors’ own field work. It
includes indications, partly original and
partly second-hand, on features such as
growth habit, average size, pollination and
dispersal type, flower colour, flowering
period, and estimated abundance. Of the
listed taxa, 89 had not been given as present
in Pignatti’s Flora of 1982, and conversely,
81 are here considered as doubtfully present
on the island.
The inventory is carefully digested and
includes much original information (alas not
identified as such). One may however ask:
who apart from the authors themselves will
benefit from its use? A list that is limited to
the annual taxa of an area might serve the
purpose of making comparisons with similar
lists for other areas, or with lists of taxa with
a different life-form for the same area – if
any existed, which they do not. But then, the
authors obviously do not care how and by
whom their work might be used – otherwise
they would not have failed to provide at
least a generic index, or would have arranged
their bibliography in a single alphabetical
sequence. As it is, their three checklists
(one for therophytes proper, one for
“hydrotherophytes” and one for biennials
that may show annual habit), each arranged
alphabetically by families, is impractical to
consult. The authors also fail to discuss adequately
the tenuous borderline between annual
and perennial plants, a limit which in
many genera, as for instance Orobanche
(here incorrectly treated as if they were all
annual), has not yet been adequately drawn.
W.G.
68. 67BGiôrgios SFÊKAS – Katalogos futôn
tou orous Pentelê Attikês. – Anthoforos,
Kentro Prostasias tês Ellênikês
Hlôridas, Athêna, 2008. [1] + 13 pages;
paper.
Mount Pentelicon rises on the northern
outskirts of Athens. It used to play the role
of the Greek capital’s green lung, badly
needed by that smog-ridden city, but in recent
years it was impaired in that function
(38) OPTIMA Newsletter No. 38 2009