Review

This work is the first of its kind in so far that it gives an account of the chemotaxonomy of a large family of plants and its implications on the taxonomy of that family. The ideas for this book were derived from a symposium, to which all the 19 authors contributed, ‘The Comparative Biochemistry of the Leguminosae’, which was held at the John Innes Institute, Hertfordshire. The first chapter, by V. H. Heywood, gives a ‘Systematic Purview’ of the family. Chapter 2—14 provide a description of the known distribution of both low molecular weight and macromolecular constituents. In several chapters the methods used are also extensively discussed. Often the information of the various chapters has been obtained by workers belonging to other disciplines than taxonomy, and little attention has been given to taxonomic methods. Several of the chapters lack a summary and a discussion of the taxonomic implications.