It is a marvelous book produced by an unsusual combination of authors, Knut Norstog, one of the most accomplished authorities on these primitive, fascinating plants, and Trevor Nicholls, a devoted cycad hobbyist. It is 363 pages long and richly illustrated with 134 color figures and hundreds of black and white photos and line drawings. For the botanist or serious plant enthusiast interested in studying these plants for the first time, this book will simply be the best and most complete introduction to cycads. For the serious cycadophile it will be a cornucopia of knowledge, unearthed and simplified from obscure and technical scientific joursnals. This book has a truly ambitious goal: bringing together all knowledge on cycads. The result is a reference work with remarkable scope and depth. The topics it covers range from cell structure, developmental anatomy, physiology, reproduction, ecology, genetics, fossil history, to a description of all living species. One might think that in such an ambitious effort, only a superficial account of each subject can be made. On the contrary, it is clear that the authors have taken pains to research each topic in depth and present a complete summation of what is known.
The introcuctory chapter describes the structure of cycads an dthe interrelations of the 11 genera based on their morphology, chemistry, chromosomes and DNA. Chapters 2 and 3 present a very complete picture of the anatomy of cycads and the details of fertilization and development of the young plant. This is the first complete update of these subjects since Chamberlain's 1935 classic on gymnosperm morphology. The reader will be delighted as he/she reads this section because the accompanying pictures so clearly illustrate the points and concepts the authors make in the text. Chapter 4 discusses physiology and growth, a topic with relevance to horticulture. chapter 5 summarizes what is known about population biology and pollination ecology. The authors present an especially lucid account of the importance of insect pollination to these plants. No work of such sweeping coverage, however, is complete in every topic, and the authors are often quick to point out where present knowledge is incomplete and where their coverage is, as a result lacking. Two topics, however, are given scant coverage in this book: heat production in cones and mycorrhizal associations in cycad roots. Chapter 6 presents a fascinating account of fossil cycads over this group's 250 million year history. Finallyk chapter 7 and 8 describe all known species of cycads in the Old and New Worlds. The approximate distributions of all species are given on maps and the authors focus on interrelationships between various species, placing each into species groups. As the authors point out, our current understanding of cycad taxonomy, especially in Asia and the New World, is incomplete, and the advanced cycad enthusiast may question a few of the species descriptions, distributions, and illustrations presented in this section, especially as our understanding of cycad taxonomy advances.
Unlike some texts on botany, this book is written in a conversational style with amusing anecdotes interspersed throughout. It is a personal work, with the senior author describing work which he himself conducted during a long distinguished career or research of people he knew personally. This is clearly not a technical work, but a teaching reference. Technical terms are kept to a minimum and where they are unavoidable, they are usually clearly explained and a glossary is provided. For anyone contemplating research on cycads, this book will be an essential starting point. For those who wish to do more indepth readings, hundreds of classic and modern papers are cited and listed in its reference section.
This book is priced at $145, expensive, but well worth the cost if one considers that the only alternative for obtaining this detail of information is years of research in a major botanical library. Here it is in a relatively easy and digestible form. There is no other book like it and it is likely to serve as the standard reference on cycads for decades to come.

Reviewed by William Tang, Fairchild Tropical Graden, Miami, FL.

Publ. Cornell Univ Press, Ithaca, NY, March 1998
ISBN: 080143033X
by Knut J. Norstog
and
Trevor J. Nicholls    Price: about $145.00