Flora of Australia, Volume 48, Ferns,
Gymnosperms and Allied Groups

Volume Editor, Patrick M. McCarthy
CSIRO Publishing Collingwood Victoria Australia 1998, 788 pp, color illustrations

Hardback US $72.00. Paperback, out of print.

There’s an important newcomer in Australian fern literature. There are a host of regional texts on Australian ferns, including Garrett’s excellent The Ferns of Tasmania (1996). There are also several recent horticulturally-oriented books on Australian ferns by Clifford and Constantine (Ferns, Fern Allies, and Conifers of Australia, 1980), Jones and Clemesha (Australian Ferns and Fern Allies, 1976 & 1981), and Goudey (A Handbook of Ferns for Australia and New Zealand, 1988). However, Flora of Australia represents the first comprehensive, Australia-wide treatment of non-flowering vascular plants in more than 100 years. The fern flora of Australia includes the six Australian States, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, and the immediate offshore islands. The other Australian islands are included in volumes 49 and 50 of the Flora.

This text incorporates 456 fern species in 112 genera. With respect to fern names, an area where constant “slippage” occurs, the authors have deliberately decided not to push the envelope. "It is not the task of a Flora to advance new and largely untested hypotheses on phylogeny, but neither should the arrangement of taxa be clearly outdated." [p. xi]

The flora does present new plant findings (taxa) in an appendix. Following the introduction there are nine color plates, a feature seldom found in formal floras. The first eight plates feature four ferns or fern allies each, totalling 32 ferns. The nine plate is an colored illustration of Doodia aspera, showing growth habit, spore pattern, and scale shape. Later in the text (p. 497) there are another eight color plates with the first eight photos featuring ferns and the remaining 24 photos showing gymnosperms. The Flora does not indicate how these particular photographs and drawing were selected.

The next major section to the volume is an Introduction to the Ferns and Fern Allies. This section presents much useful information on fern history, form (morphology), reproduction (cytology), geographical distribution (biogeography), and habitats (ecology). Even though this is not a book on fern culture, reading these sections would provide much important information you could use to keep specific ferns alive. The next section discusses classification and evolutionary relationships of the seedless plants. A historic treatment of classification practices is quite enlightening and the discussion of the classification scheme used in this volume identifies Kramer’s 1990 “Notes on the higher level classification of the recent ferns” (pp. 49-52 in K. Kubitzki, ed., The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. vol. 1 Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms) as the basis for the Flora’s classification decisions.

The following section provides a discussion of the fossil history of Australia. This, in turn, is followed by an 11page key to the families of ferns and fern allies in Australia. This key is interspersed with line drawing featuring aspects of fern morphology.

Pages 48 to 495 present keys and descriptions for the genera and species within each family. The families are ordered in a fairly typical fashion, starting with the fern allies and then presenting ferns from most primitive to most recent, based on fairly recent phylogentic relationships. Descriptions include:

• the various names a fern has had historically,
• a description of the fern shape and size, and
• a description of the ferns locality and habitat.

Finally, there is a reference to a distribution map for each fern.

The distribution maps start on page 662. These maps show the Australian distribution of each fern and are cross-referenced to the page on which the Flora describes the fern (taxon). The distribution maps are followed by an appendix in which the Flora presents recent fern findings, a brief glossary of terms used in the Flora, a listing of the abbreviations and contractions used in the document, and the all important index. In the whole volume, the glossary is the weak point with many terms used in the Flora not included. The glossary defines “vein” and “rhizome” but not “phylogeny” and “lectotype.”

Overall, this is an excellent, comprehensive work that will be useful to anyone deeply interested in ferns. The price for the flora is quite reasonable given the massive amounts of useful information included in the document. At least two Australian fern groups, the Fern Study Group of the Study Group of Australian Plants (SGAP) and the Fern Society of Victoria, are adopting this volume as their prime reference and official authority for Australian ferns.

Available from CSIRO Publishing through the internet at www.publish.csiro.au, through the mail at 150 Oxford Street (PO Box 1139), Collingwood, VIC 3066 Australia., or by phone at (+61) 3 9662 7666. They can also be contacted by e-mail at sales@publish.csiro.au.

In the US, the distributor is Accents Publications Service Inc., 721 Ellsworth Drive, Suite 203-A, Silver Spring MD 20910-4436 USA. Their phone is 301-587-3950.