Book Reviews

Nowadays even the titles of scientific books are too ambitious and often promise more than their contents show. This is also the case with this atlas. It deals with the basic processes of sexual reproduction at the microscopic level and is focused on meiosis, gametogenesis and fertilization, not with other aspects of sexual reproduction such as flower pollination, seed development and dispersal or germination. The book is best described as a plant embryological atlas illustrating processes up to and including gametic fusion. It contains an excellent collection of light microscopic, scanning- and transmission electron microscopic photographs of a high quality made available by a number of plant embryologists working in European laboratories. The book is divided into three parts, anther development, pistil development and progamic phase and fertilization. Each part has a short introduction and a limited number of references. The (about 240) photographs are mounted in 101 thoroughly labelled plates. About half of the photographs have been published in scientific journals before, the other half are original. There is a beautiful series of photomicrographs illustrating the subsequent developmental stages of micro- and megasporo- and gametogenesis, pollen germination and pollen tube growth and of different components of the mature embryo sac. Although Impatiens, Nicotiana, Spinacia and Brassica are well represented, the photomicrographs have been made of a larger number of plant species. The legends, printed on the left-hand pages, are concise, widely spaced and most of them are provided with outline drawings indicating the position of the photographed parts in the reproductive organs. Not much attention has been given to the variability in structures. Neither the different types of thickenings of the endothecium, functioning in anther dehiscence, nor various ovule and embryo sac types are illustrated or mentioned. The descriptions of the tenuinucellate and crassinucellate types of ovules are inadequate.