This short textbook first appeared in the series BIBLIOTHECA
MYCOLOGICA in 2002 (see MYCOTAXON 86: 480 - 481, 2003) and was
reissued in that series in 2008 with only very minor changes (see
MYCOTAXON 110: 511 - 512, 2009). The first obvious difference in this
third edition is that it is not released as a part of the BIBLIOTHECA
MYCOLOGICA series - it has attractive coloured front and back covers
with photographs rather than the standard bright green of a
BIBLIOTHECA MYCOLOGICA, something that will immediately make it more
appealing to students. The book has also swelled by 26 pages, has five
more figures, and I was personally gratified to see that the authors
had acted on particular points raised in my review of the second
edition. This was not just a matter of correcting author attributions,
and inserting cited references missing from the "Literatur" section
but entailed the adoption of more recent molecular classifications and
references, including the demise of the category "deuteromycet" -
although "Coelomycetes" and "Hyphomycetes" persist for pragmatic
reasons as headings in the keys. The authors have in large measure
vindicated my comment "that they could have produced a book that was
more authoritative and reflected our current knowledge of mould
fungi". I was especially pleased to see that much of the increased
length was due to new entries for additional genera, along with the
re-arrangement and expansion of some of the photograph plates so as to
include details of additional fungi. Unfortunately, the reproduction
quality of some photographs taken from the previous edition is far
from optimal (e.g., Abb. VIII.4). In addition, the short section on
chemotaxonomic and molecular approaches to classification has been
extended slightly; perhaps the section could be even longer in a
fourth edition to explain in some detail the different molecular
methods that can be employed in identification and the pitfalls of
relying solely on sequence-comparisons. This textbook will now be even
of more value to German-speaking students than the earlier
editions. Indeed, those who bought the second edition should promptly
discard it and buy the third!
My final comment is that I would like also to see this available in an
English translation, especially as there is currently no really
equivalent work in print. In particular, the plates showing different
types of conidiogenesis in detail merit a much wider audience than
they will receive hidden in a German text-book. I will be interested
to see if this suggestion is taken up, and, if it is, I will be really
pleased with the additional evidence that comments made in book
reviews can have tangible results; the genre would then have been
unequivocally vindicated.
DAVID L. HAWKSWORTH Departamento de Biologia Vegetal II, Facultad de
Farmacia, Uniuersidad Complutense de Madrid
MYCOTAXON vol. 113 (2010)