Huntleyas and Related Orchids
By Patricia A. Harding – (2008)
260 pages; matt paper, 150 colour photos, 1 table & 6 monochrome illustration plates.
Hard Cover: 27cm x 19.5cm.
ISBN: 978-0-88192-884-6
Timber Press Inc.
This is quite a good book dealing with a group of predominantly soft leafed orchids generally lacking pseudobulbs related to Maxillaria. The work presented here is based on recent molecular studies conducted in the USA.
It covers 18 genera with very detailed text description of each genus and the history of each genus. All species currently accepted are included with keys to help key out the species. The species have a very detailed description, including the type collections and location, where published, synonyms etc. The author has, it would appear, gone to the trouble to research and locate all the correct relevant data for the type collections and should be congratulated for that effort, which is often lacking (or misinformed) in many books.
There are many beautiful, some even stunning, colour photographs in this book which are all located near the middle of the book which help to illustrate the beauty of these orchids.
Overall this is a very good book and covers this group of orchids quite comprehensively including culture and taxonomy, which has not been done before. My only real criticism is the standard of the drawings on the final monochrome plate are quite a reduction in quality compared to the previous 5 plates which are excellent. Further, although I fully appreciate and applaud the authors enthusiasm on this subject and completely understand the frustration one experiences when trying to separate difficult taxa, the use of terminology such as “tearing flowers apart” does not really conjure a positive image of a botanist at work and the appropriate terminology should have been ‘dissected’. However, those things aside, this is a great piece of work and certainly worth buying and my congratulations to the author for putting in the hard yards to produce this very useful book.
Rod Rice
Principal Reviewer
Nature & Travel Books