Review

This is primarily a textbook for students, providing a synopsis of orders and families of Gymnosperms, Dicotyledons, and Monocotyledons native, naturalized, and commonly cultivated in Malaya and Singapore. It emerged from a syllabus prepared by the author in 1960. There is a brief introduction. The bulk of the work is taken up by the descriptions of orders and families, each provided with a succinct discussion. Of most families one species is figured, the figure consisting of a habit drawing with a diagram and flower analysis: obviously almost all are original. There is a key to the orders, within each order a key to the families, and appendix 2 gives a simple artificial key to the common families. Within the families there is mostly a key to most genera. Appendix 1 lists family names with their Malay and Chinese equivalents and the book is ending with a glossary, addenda, and an index. The work is extremely well produced and is very recommendable for students’ courses in systematy in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Indo-China, and the Philippines. The main frame is also distinctly useful in a much wider area, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, S. China, Formosa, but of course these areas contain other genera and the species figured are there not often applicable as to available material for students. The price is for students rather prohibitive. However, a student edition will be out soon. The price of this will be M $ 20, just one third of the original price.