Book Reviews
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ISSN: 0075-5974 (print) ISSN: 1874-933X (electronic)
Book Reviews (Edited by A. Marshall)1
M. Hamidah, L. S. L. Chua, M. Suhaida, W. S. Y. Yong & R. Kiew. Botanical Gazetteer for Peninsular Malaysia. Research Pamphlet No. 131. Pp. ix + 129, 6 colour plates, 2 maps. Malaysia, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, http://www.frim.gov.my, 2011. ISBN 978-9675221-72-9 (hardback). A Flora project is beneficial in so many ways — the published volumes aiding our understanding of the world’s plant biodiversity are the most obvious and conspicuous outputs, but numerous ‘spin-off’ products are generated. These include training for botanists (young and old), increased exploration, improved collecting effort, specimen determinations updated, international collaborations, online resources, production of phylogenetic data, and, of relevance to this review, improved data quality for mapping and understanding plant distributions. The Flora of Peninsular Malaysia project based at the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) has published a hard-copy gazetteer of botanical localities in the Peninsula providing standard geographical data of immediate use for botanists and ecologists working in the region. At the heart of any Flora project is the production of taxonomic treatments. There are many definitions of taxonomy, but one facet of the discipline is the understanding and analysis of organisms, their characters, and the utility of character variation for species delimitation, especially if they show discernible geographical segregation. In addition, modern taxonomic products, including the Flora of Peninsular Malaysia project, now give conservation assessments for each taxon treated. These are often generated following IUCN guidelines, which include two geographical standards — Extent of Occurrence (EOO) and Area of Occupancy (AOO) — and both of these require geographic specimen data. To better understand geographical variation and conservation priorities through mapping, it is essential to geo-reference localities, i.e.,
provide a latitude and longitude, particularly for historic collections/specimens where such data are lacking, and the gazetteer produced by the FRIM team will be a very valuable source of information to complete such tasks. Rather than just select a set of places and localities in Peninsular Malaysia deemed important for botanical research, the authors have provided a comprehensive ‘botano-geographical’ index to Peninsular Malaysia using data collected from herbarium specimens in KEP and SING as well as botanical publications (but it does not include Singapore localities). The book is arranged in three sections: Places, Roads and Rivers and Streams, with localities crossreferenced depending on the type of locality, as well as differences in historic and contemporary Malay spelling. The Introduction explains the arrangement used and should be read before using. It must be noted, the gazetteer is not an index to every place, village, road and river in the Peninsula, but is rather produced to help locate and geo-re
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