GROWTH HABITS OF THE EUCALYPTS. M. R. Jacobs. Forestry and Timber Bureau, Commonwealth of Australia, 1955. Canberra. pp. 262. £ 1.10.0 (Australian currency, inclusive of postage).
This monograph-like book condenses information available only in several out-of-print publications of the Australian Commonwealth Forestry and Timber Bureau, in papers on the treatment of Eucalypt forests by numerous authors, and in field notes by Bureau research officers, and by students at the Australian Forestry School under the direction of the author.
The morphological characters and physiological reactions of the eucalypts are described as a basis for eucalypt silviculture and management. In this presentation the author effectively shows how the silvicultural characteristics of the genus Eucalyptus fit into the broad pattern of behavior of the world's forests.
The chapter on the leafy shoots describes production and development of leaves, buds, and branches; that on the development and maintenance of mature crowns describes growth stages, size, shape, and longevity of crowns; that on growth stresses deals with longitudinal and lateral stresses of erect and leaning stems and their possible causes, and there is a chapter on gum veins. These four chapters set the stage for the final two chapter on silvicultural characteristics and the effect of growth habits on the treatment of eucalypt forests. In the former are discussed light and root competition, advance growth, seed production and natural seedling establishment, crown classification and "shyness" and "abrasion", spacing, natural thinning, coppicing, bark, fire, wind, rainfall, and parasites. The final chapter gives useful information on silvicultural systems, the group selection system, advance growth salvage; special sections are devoted to the treatment of jarrah, tall eucalypts on good sites, regeneration of eucalypti in savannah woodlands, treatment of the "red gum" group, and treatment of low quality forests.
A useful list of references, and seven pages of detailed index headings are extremely valuable additions.
Although the book is intended primarily for people interested in Australian forestry, it is highly recommended to foresters in countries outside Australia where the planting of eucalypti is beginning to take on increasing significance.
The author's paper, based on this book, for the world Eucalyptus Conference galled by FAO in Rome, 1956, appears in this issue.
FOREST TREES OF SARAWAK AND BRUNEI. F. G. Browne, pp. 370, Government Printing Office, Kuching, 1955. $12.00.
This attractively illustrated book should prove useful to tropical foresters in general and those in Southeast Asia in particular. After describing the territory and its forests, which the author divides into five sub-divisions of the Tropical Evergreen Rain Forest, with some 17 types or sub-types, there are given very practical keys to, and in the identification of, trees and timbers. The tree key is based on characteristics of leaves, branching, color of latex, bark, crown form, trunk form, and wood color. The key to the common woods is based on size arrangement, and number of pores, color of wood, weight, structural features such as resin canals and rays, deposits, and exudations. This is followed by detailed but very readable descriptions of more than 160 genera or species arranged according to families. Some of the species are given under the local name only.
The bibliography and the index, as well as the map on the inside back cover, add to the utility of this book, which the author modestly points out is not a flora or a scientific work but rather a preliminary survey of the forest wealth of Sarawak and Brunei.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PLANT PROTECTION, 1951. (Bibliographie de la Protection des Plantes, 1951. Bibliographie der Pflanzenschutzliteratur, 1951). By J. garner. pp. 420. Paul Parey, Berlin-Hamburg, 1965.
This volume, listing the titles of the international literature on plant protection published in 1951, is the twenty-third issue in a series covering all literature since 1914. Only the years 1946 to 1950 are still outstanding, but this gap will be closed in the near future.
The 1951 list with more than 12,500 titles is, as all previous ones, based on the card index at the Biologische Bundesanstalt für Land-und Forstwirtschaft in Berlin-Dahlem, which now contains over 300,000 titles.
Titles, table of contents, introductions and chapter headings are printed in three languages, German, English and French. In order to guarantee a fast and sure way of locating any desired literature, the contents have been subdivided into the following main chapters and subtitles:
I. General section. Collective works and textbooks; reports of activities and congresses bibliographies; biographies.II. Diseases and causes. General pathology; diseases with various or unknown causes; diseases not caused by parasites; vegetal parasites; animal parasites; viruses.
III. Diseases and host plants. Vegetation and cultivated plants in general; survey of the incidence of plant diseases and parasites; cereals; potatoes and beets; legumes and grasses; commercial plants; fruits; grape-vine; forest trees, timbers, parasites of wood and wood preservation; ornamental plants, garden and greenhouse plants; tropical commercial plants; storage protection; diseases of uncultivated plants and cryptogams.
IV. Measures of plant protection. Plant hygiene; plant therapeutics; advancement and organization of plant protection; statistics of the incidence of plant diseases and parasites.
An alphabetic author index concludes the voluminous list.
EL EUCALIPTO. (The Eucalypt). J. P. Vidal. pp. 188. Tomo I. Ministerio de Agricultura, Bogota, Colombia, 1966.
Beginning with general descriptions of the principal identifying characteristics of the genus Eucalyptus, to which it devotes some ten pages, this publication presents brief histories of the introduction of eucalypti into France, Italy, Spain, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. The major part of the book is given over to detailed notes on each of over 160 species of eucalypti The species are then listed according to the principal uses for which they are found suitable. Also included are lists of species arranged alphabetically by scientific and by common names. These lists might have increased usefulness if they had been accompanied by the page numbers bearing the descriptive notes. This publication should prove helpful to Spanish-reading foresters, as will the Spanish edition of Eucalypts for Planting by A. Metro, FAO
Forestry Study No. 11, which is expected to be available for distribution during 1956.
FLORE DES VÉGÉTAUX LIGNEUX DE LA MAMORA. LA NATURE AU MAROC. (Flora of Woody Vegetation of the Mamora. Nature in Marocco) A. Métro and Ch. Sauvage. Rabat. 1956. pp. 498.
The extensive cork-oak forests of the Mamora are the subject of this most useful flora. It is intended to serve as a guide to identification of the natural and planted woody vegetation in this zone, which is such a popular picnic and outing area for the people in the vicinity of Rabat and nearby towns of Morocco.
There are brief descriptions of the geographic situation, the soils, the climate, the natural vegetation groups, floristic details, the human factors, the management policies and practices, and the reforestation and regeneration of the eucalypts in the Mamora. A helpful key for species determination precedes the detailed information on the species themselves which are arranged under the headings of Gymnosperms, Monocotyledons, and Dicotyledons. The sketches and plates add greatly to the usefulness of the book. Some of the plates are particularly attractive. The glossary and the index facilitate the use of this flora.
WALDBAU (Silviculture), pp. 418, 1950. ANSPRACHE UND PFLEGE VON DICKUNGEN (Appraisal and Tending of Young Stands), pp. 80, 1952. WALDPFLEGE (Tending of Forests), pp. 200, 1953. By J. N. Köstler Paul Parey, Berlin-Hamburg.
With these three publications the author, Director of the International Forestry Center (CIS) from 1939 to 1946 and since Professor at the University of Munich, has made a substantial contribution to the modern concepts of silviculture. His endeavor is to awaken in the reader an understanding of forests as living communities. There is no place for any schematic or generalized rules for forest treatment. On the contrary, for each particular stand there is one best solution for treatment, which the forester must be able to determine individually and execute.
The first volume is a textbook on silviculture, in which Köstler makes his lectures available to a wider readership. The second study deals with problems of stand improvement through selective thinning. In recent years, a marked change of view has taken place, particularly in Central European silviculture, where it has been recognized that care of stands through periodic cuttings is at least as important as regeneration in forest management. Professor W. Schaedelin developed a method of continuous care of tree communities throughout their life from seedlings to mature trees based on the ideas first brought forth by Karl Gayer. In his noted study on the improvement of stands through selective tending (third edition, 1942) Schaedelin himself admitted that he had made many assertions without proof. To bring more light and certainty to the problem, Köstler analyzed over 100 thinning sample plots, principally with a view to recording the effects of selective tending. His study confirms the positive results of such measures, but also shows the importance of adaptation of method and technique to the special conditions of each particular young stand
Köstler's other work on Tending of Forests is a continuation of his textbook on silviculture. Whereas the textbook dealt with the problems in general, the author here goes into details by discussing practical silvicultural solutions for 333 examples, selected from private forests in southern Germany. They are of interest to foresters elsewhere because of the valuable contribution to ideas on the influence of forest ownership upon progress in forest management. The examples are illustrated by a number of excellent photographs, maps and diagrams.
