Field Guide to the Orchids of Madagascar
By Phillip Cribb & Johan Hermans – (2009)
456 pages, matt art paper, with 454 colour photographs, 4 maps & 2 botanical illustrations.
Hard Cover. 24cm x 16cm.
ISBN: 978 184246 158 7
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – Richmond, Surrey, TW9 9AB, UK.
I have always had a fascination with the island of Madagascar with all its unique fauna and flora and this book makes a nice addition to my library of Madagascan orchids and the Angraecoids generally.
This book is user friendly in its layout and briefly covers all the 1000 species or so of Orchidaceae known to Madagascar, 90% of those endemic. It opens with an informative introduction to the world’s 4th largest island and the evolvement of its unique fauna and flora. It goes on to explain what determines an orchid and the diversity in growth habit, plant and leaf structure, inflorescence habit, flower diversity etc.
A range of rather nice landscape and environment shots help illustrate the text descriptions of various forest types and mountain ranges distributed in different parts of the island. This chapter closes with a nice explanation and amply justified plea to conserve our planet and five different colored maps illustrating forest types, topography, provincial boundaries etc. before going into the key for the genera.
Each of the 57 genera covered, opening with Vanilla, has a brief description including approximate numbers of species and global distribution. The author and details of publication are not provided. This is followed by a key to the species for each genus that occur on Madagascar. The species have their scientific name and author and any synonymous names (no type or publication data provided), a brief description of the species with data on distribution including approximate elevation, forest types and approximate flowering time. This is further enhanced with a map of Madagascar with the areas of occurrence shaded pink. Not all species are illustrated with a photo. Only about 1/3 of the species are illustrated with generally very nice photos, some of the photos are outstanding with a few, unluckily a little out of focus.
This book overall is more compact (although heavier in weight) and more informative with genera details (not included previously) and species descriptions compared with the previous edition published by Kew in 2007. It is however, completely void of all data relevant to when and where the genera or species were published. That aside, combined with the previous volume, “Orchids of Madagascar Second Edition” gives one a good beginning to a comprehensive library on Madagascar’s wild orchids, with a wide range of information and wonderful colour photos not available elsewhere.
Rod Rice
Principal Reviewer
Nature & Travel Books