This volume of the excellent book series is focused on diatom flora of Tasmanian highland area, comprised diatom records from 76 Tasmanian mountain lakes. The aims of the book is mentioned by authors in the introduction. Diatoms are widely used in the northern hemisphere as indicators of present and past environmental conditions and have become an integral part of biomonitoring programs. Central this studies is the development of reference data-sets and the construction of inference models for specific environmental characteristics, e. g. pH, total phosphorus, salinity. Authors think that diatom flora of these lakes can well characterise different environmental factors, because of ranging from highly acid, dystrophic lakes to ultraoligotrophic, clearwater lakes. Most of the lakeland isprotected, with marked terrestrial and aquatic ecological gradients. It offers the ideal, pristine environment in which to study the relationships between the distribution of diatoms and limnological, climatic, pedagogical and geological gradients and/or discontinuities. Description of the study area follows by materials and methods. The chapter "results" starts with the principal component analysis of chemical variables of the lakes. The autecology of species is calculated by weighted averaging regression to estimate of individual species' optima and tolerances. In the taxonomical chapter of the book 280 taxa of 35 genera are discussed. A lot of them are widely distributed in lakes and river of each continent. We can find the enumeration of recent reference of each taxon, their light- and/or electronmicrographs, it synonymy, morphology, distribution and ecology. In several cases the morphological characterisation of the taxon is very short, in other cases really detailed. The ecological characterisation of taxa re poor or seems to similar with distribution. Sometimes species is mentioned, e. g. "occasional in mesotrophic lake" but usually, e. g. "only observed in Lake Curly". So the ecological data are not really useful and difficult to understand why authors mentioned it at every taxon. We can find misdeterminations (on Plate 2, Fig. 1 seems not to be Cyclotella Meneghiniana by the frequency of marginal fultoportulae, or on Plate 16, Fig. 1 seems to belong to Cyclotella stelligera and not to C. pseudostelligera), but they do not reduce the value of the book. It is well-illustrated, on 42 plates more than 400 LM or SEM micrographs are presented. We can recommend this monograph showing the diatom flora of an interesting area, to algologists, applied hydrobiologists and also for basic systematic work and university education. This book is useful for all specialists working with diatoms of lakes and rivers. K. T. Kiss Acta Bot. Hung. 40, 1996/97