Traditional Trees of Pacific Islands: Their Culture, Environment, and Use (review)
Rent from DeepDyve- Traditional Trees of Pacific Islands: Their Culture, Environment, and Use
Apart from Art Whistler's excellent series on the botany and ethnobotany of central Polynesia, nontechnical botanical literature of Oceania is scant and far from unified in its coverage. To some extent this reflects the diversity of biological communities; the surprising difficulty of regional transport and communications; the history of political divisions of the region; the segregation of botanical literature into French or English without readily available translations; and the diversity of languages and dialects in Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. Perhaps to a much greater degree, however, it reflects a true shortage of knowledge. Amazingly few botanists are fluent in the scientific and regional names, geographic ranges, and ethnobotanical uses of plants of Pacific islands. Traditional Trees of Pacific Islands goes a great distance toward providing a remedy, especially for nontechnical, ethnobotanically oriented audiences. And the targeted audiences of this book, as stated by Hawaiian ethnobotanist extraordinaire Isabella Abbott in the foreword, are botanists, commercial nursery plant growers, gardeners, farmers, planners, landscapers, and even real estate developers.
Pacific ethnobotany is a romantic, intriguing topic that is beginning to draw many fans, and the authors of this book recognized the growing interest, honoring the topic both in its title and content. In this respect, Traditional Trees of Pacific Islands may be unique—is perhaps a new wave of pronounced ethnobotanical emphasis combined with what is basically an identification guide with fairly detailed ecological notes. The approach works and the "give 'em what they want" philosophy has produced a truly nice result. That said, a spattering of true mountain forest species are thrown in, the unifying theme of their inclusion presumably being their use by humans.
The organization of this coffee-table–sized book is based on a field-book approach of treating 65 species of trees of Pacific islands in 46 chapter-like sections. The tree species selected were those either most likely to be encountered or most interesting to the botanically and ethnobotanically minded. The selection of species is well done with a mix of native and human-transported species. Each one of these 46 synopses of the species or allied species cluster has been contributed by an authority in the group. This compilation has produced a plainspoken but authoritative and unprecedented treatise of Pacific regional trees. Knowledge from this book will not allow one to wander the mountain forests of Pacific islands and know the names of most trees; however, it will demystify some of the more frequently encountered tree species from coast to mountain.
I am not a fan of what at times can appear to be an overstructured style focused on cultivation and propagation, but this is the cost of serving many masters and may be a small distraction to bear. The listing of regional names, notes on potential invasiveness, and specific human uses yielded much information that is useful and largely not available elsewhere.
The vignettes I found especially interesting were those relating to the genus Artocarpus spp., that is, the breadfruits, breadnuts, and relatives in all their seemingly infinite variation in leaf and fruit characters; the chapters on the Hawaiian endemics, Metrosideros, Acacia, and the sandalwoods (Santalum), which are unparalleled contributions; the excellent chapters on Polynesian-transported trees (for example, Cocos, Cordia, Broussonetia, Aleurites); and the more oddball contributions, such as Gnetum, fascinating even for more advanced students.
Traditional Trees of Pacific Islands lives up to its impressive name and mission. It is well written with excellent images in a brightly colored, crisp reproduction. To those who profess more than a passing interest in the botany of Oceania, this book is a de rigueur addition to their libraries. The book is not an ecological treatise of the scale of Mueller-Dombois's and Fosberg's ecological opus Vegetation of the...
