Book Reviews
Eagle's Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand—Second Series

by Audrey Eagle

Published by Collins, Auckland, 1982. 382 pages $95.

This beautifully illustrated book is the companion volume to Eagle's Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand in Colour (1975). The first volume illustrated about 2/5 of New Zealand's trees and shrubs. The current volume completes the coverage by depicting virtually all of the remaining native woody-stemmed species. However, the two volumes deal only with page 76 seed plants (gymnosperms and angiosperms) so that anyone seeking illustrations of tree ferns will have to turn to books by other authors, such as Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand by Poole and Adams (N.Z. Govt. Printer, 1979) or The Native Trees of New Zealand by J. T. Salmon (A. H. and A. W. Reed, 1980)

Eagle's Second Series contains paintings of 405 trees and shrubs (including lianes), all of them flowering plants and dicotyledons apart from three monocotyledons. The majority of plants painted are woody, although a few herbaceous and semi-woody species are included to round off some genera. Forty nine genera (from 33 families) are represented, and their systematic arrangement follows that in Volumes 1 and 2 of Flora of New Zealand (N.Z. Govt. Printer, 1961 and 1970).

A laudable aim of the author has been to present the latest information. Thus, the most recent botanical names are used and up to date details are given on synonymy and distribution. Botanists will welcome the inclusion of paintings and data on many as yet unnamed species, which are referred to by letters (e.g. Coprosma sp. (r)). Many subspecies, varieties and forms are also dealt with, although completeness below the species level was not the author's intention.

The plates of illustrations make up the largest section of the book. In general, each species is depicated by life size paintings of foliage bearing flowers and or fruits. Enlargements of small leaves, buds, flowers, fruits, etc. are also frequently included to show important details. The paintings are accurate, clear and natural in colour or almost so. They are nearly always sufficiently representative of each plant to enable most people to identify an unknown specimen by matching it against the illustrations and confirming by consulting the botanical notes. One painting that is inadequate for identification purposes is Hebe stricta var. atkinsonii, where flower and fruit features need to be shown, although this pictorial deficiency is partially rectified by the botanical notes.

The paintings are, in general, of such consistently high standard that I found it difficult to single out a few as particularly impressive. Among those that struck me as quite superb are Clematis foetida and C. marata, Carmichaelia flagelliformis, Pseudopanax macintyrei, the scandias, Dracophyllum traversii, the pachystegias, Scaevola gracilis, Calystegia soldanella, and Parahebe catarractae ssp. catarractae.

A minor criticism of the illustrations is the occasional use of broken or solid lines between some species sharing the same page. These detract somewhat from the aesthetic beauty of the paintings (especially the obliquely placed lines delimiting plate 176), and seem unnecessary since the captions adequately identify all the parts shown.

The plates are followed by maps and 113 pages of botanical notes which describe (usually briefly) the plants illustrated and give details on synonymy, habitat and distribution. Derivations are given for botanical names except for commemorative species names which are listed under the person they honour in the biographies section of the book. Maori and common names are also given for each species when they exist. A useful feature is the inclusion of distribition tables for the larger genera in which the species are ordered as they occur from north to south in the New Zealand botanical region.

The botanical notes are followed by a list of name changes (and corrections) that apply to Eagle's first volume, a glossary of scientific terms, a dictionary of selected biographies, a bibliography and an index.

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The book seems remarkably free from errors. The plants all appear to be correctly named and there are very few spelling errors (e.g. raoulii, which is mis-spelt on plates 370-372, but spelt correctly elsewhere). In the description of Olearia odorata (240) “longer should be “shorter . A small number of errors and omissions were noticed in the captions of the illustrations e.g., Carmichael virgata (85) where the seed is shown enlarged not the seed pod, and Dracophyllum latifolium (129B) where “shown reduced:complete tree is omitted. In the glossary peduncle needs to be redefined to distinguish it from pedicel.

This magnificent book should have a wide appeal. The beauty of the paintings will give pleasure to anyone interested in plant illustrations. Amateurs will find it an instructive and useful identification guide, while its up to date and comprehensive coverage (when combined with the author's first volume) will make it an invaluable reference work for professional botanists. At $95 Eagle's Second Series is expensive, but for a book of such obvious quality it is not overpriced.