The first paper by Lars Arvidsson is a summary of David’s long lichenological career which took him from his home in New Zealand to the UK in the 1970s, and from here to many other countries both in the North and Southern Hemispheres before going back to New Zealand in the mid-1990s. One of the fruits of this outstanding career is his prolific scientific contribution with over 300 hundred papers written in 40 years of work, which also include a major solo publication, the Flora of New Zealand – lichens, recently much extended and revised and no longer fitting into one volume (see above)! This paper and the editors’ Preface also mention David as a devoted husband and a most generous friend, something that many, including me, can corroborate from our knowledge of him. Of the 18 species named after him, 14 are newly described in the present volume. Arvidsson only includes 16 as he forgot to include Cladonia gallowayi, described from New Zealand in 2003, but listed in the on-line Index fungorum and Recent literature on lichens; and Dactylospora davidii described as new in the present volume (pp 233-234).

The remaining historical contributions are a miscellaneous collection of papers, starting with David Hawksworth’s paper on W. Lauder Lindsay’s contribution to New Zealand’s lichenicolous fungi, Mark Seaward’s paper on Richard Spruce, Kärnefelt & Thell’s accounts of Acharius and the early days of the International Association for Lichenology (IAL), Per Magnus Jørgensen’s on Norwegian lichenology, and Roland Moberg’s insight into Uppsala’s herbarium visitor book. All of these papers have a strong link to David Galloway’s background, interests, and pursuits. In fact, it was thanks to David’s infectious enthusiasm and through his support for the IAL that many of us began to study tropical lichens. And, if I had not read Kärnefelt& Thell’s account, probably I would not have realised that there had been so much going on in the IAL prior to David Galloway’s presidency of the fourth council. Though some things have not changed much from the early days, as far back as 1977, Irwin Brodo (the penultimate President) was already expressing his concern regarding the financial situation of the Association, as the dues did not cover much beyond the cost of printing the newsletter. Also, despite an increased focus on Southern Hemisphere and tropical lichenology, the lichen researchers are still mostly from Northern countries (e.g. of about 56 contributors to this volume, only 12 are from the South).

The second part includes the taxonomic, floristic, and ecological contributions to this festschrift. In time, the contributions of this section might not be comparable in systematic relevance to that of Josef Poelt’s homage of 1984, also referred to as the “900 page lichen bible,” but it will certainly be much cited by researchers of tropical lichens after Galloway’s (1991) edited volume on tropical lichens. The taxonomic and nomenclatural novelties in the text amount to: 45 new genera, species, and infraspecific taxa (all clearly illustrated with photographs and line drawings), and 26 new combinations. Most of the contributions, except for Thell and collaborators on the phylogeny of the Antarctic genus Himantormia, do not include molecular data, but are substantial taxonomic accounts which might include keys; e.g. Frödén and Kärnefelt on the genus Teloschistes in Africa, Hafellner & Mayrhofer’s on lichenicolous fungi of New Zealand (these two the largest contributions to the text with ca 20 pages each), Hertel’s paper on new records of lecideoid lichens from the Southern Hemisphere, Kalb’s new taxonomic and nomenclatural novelties (pp. 297-316), and Kondratyuk and collaborators’ 19 new species of the genus Caloplaca in Australia. Unfortunately the authors of the latter do not provide a key for this highly diverse and difficult genus.

Also in this section there are three lichen community contributions by Lewis-Smith on the small Antarctic island of Signy (pp. 387-403), Wirth et al. on the lichens of the Central Namib Desert (pp. 555-582), and Wolseley et al. on the lichens of Malaysian dipterocarp forests (pp. 583-603), the latter being the continuation of a survey started by David Galloway in his final years of employment at the Natural History Museum. Biogeography, a subject that David Galloway championed for lichens, is included in the contributions by Hafellner & Mayrhofer mentioned earlier (pp. 257-258), in Quillot and collaborators (pp. 479-488) who compare the lichen of Antarctica and Chile, and Randlane & Saag (pp. 489-499) address the distribution patterns of cetrarioid lichens in the Southern Hemisphere.

As a whole the book is well written and illustrated and has few typographical errors, e.g. a missing caption on p. 441 for fig. 3G, and the IAL newsletter acronym changed from ILN to INL on p.87. The photographic reproduction quality has improved from earlier volumes of this series, and it now rivals those of more upmarket scientific publications. I found the price of the paperback also rather competitive and in line with publications of similar scope. This is certainly a nice memento for David, and an important contribution to the subject.

Begoña Aguirre-Hudson, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew/UK

Mycotaxon vol. 107, 2009

There is no doubt that the new volume in the Bibliotheca Lichenologica series is a must for all lichenological libraries. It will foster the knowledge of South Hemishere lichens just as the eagerly awaited lichen flora of New Zealand of the jubilee certainly will do and is therefor a perfect gift for David Galloway.

The Editor

International Lichenological Newsletter 40(1)

PERSOONIA vol. 21 (December 2008)