Book Reviews

This publication is based largely on collections made by the author in southern Greenland in 1982. The book begins with 21 pages of introductory material, including aspects of the biology of arctic hepatics, and geography and climate of the southern Greenland area. The not insignificant problems of working on arctic plants are emphasized. The body of the publication is a detailed treatment of 135 species of hepatics that have been found in southern Greenland. Critical specimens are listed for each species, followed by a discussion of the problems associated with the species or species group. The discussions are very good, with comparisons made to taxa that could be confused. Although keys are given for a few groups of species, in general no keys are provided. There are 27 plates of drawings, some of these illustrating taxa recently described by the author and K. Damsholt; others showing critical features such as oil bodies. These drawings for the most part complement the illustrations in Schuster’s Hepaticae and Anthocerolae of Eastern North America. The memoir ends with an index to taxa and an appendix of localities where specimens were collected. This work presents many data from an area where little critical work has previously been done on hepatics. On the critical side, I would have liked to have a general key to the species included, and in the cases of the recently described taxa, careful comparison to the author’s previous work, especially to keys. This criticism is aimed only at usability, and does not in any way detract from the impressive morphological data set given here. The author’s ability to synthesize structural modifications in relation to the environment makes this work one that will be invaluable to future hepatic taxonomy. This is a book that anyone dealing with arctic cryptogams should have on their shelves and one that must be in all major libraries.