Flora (1995) 190 197-199 © by Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena Short communication: The mature fruit of Noronhia emarginata (LAM.) THOUARS (Oleaceae): an addition J. G. ROHWER Institut fUr Systematische Botanik und Pflanzengeographie der UniversWit Heidelberg, 1m Neuenheimer Feld 345, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany Accepted: January 23, 1995 In an earlier issue of this journal the present author described the flower and the fruit development of Noronhia emarginata (ROHWER 1995). In that study, the mature fruit was represented by herbarium material only. Now liquid preserved mature fruits have kindly been provided by S. ZONA, Miami, and they reveal that an important character was not adequately preserved in the herbarium material. The structure in question is an extremely delicate tissue of very large, thin- Fig. 1. Liquid-preserved mature fruit, cross section. Scale bar = 1 cm. Fig. 2. Pericarp of liquid-preserved mature fruit, central part, cross section. The structure of the· inner mesocarp is inevitably partly disrupted when the fruit is cut open. Scale bar = 1 mm. FLORA (1995) 190 197 Fig. 3. Pericarp segment of liquid-preserved immature fruit, cross section. Note that the inner mesocarp is not yet developed. Scale bar = 1 mm. Fig. 4. Pericarp of supposedly mature dried fruit, cross section. The star marks the region of the collapsed inner mesocarp. Scale bar = 1 mm. Note that figures 2 to 4 are at the same scale. C = cotyledon, E = endocarp, iM = inner mesocarp, oM = outer mesocarp. walled cells intercalated between the somewhat corky outer mesocarp and the woody endocarp (Figs. 1, 2). This tissue was not yet developed in the young fruit described (Fig. 3), and in the supposedly mature dried fruit it was entirely collapsed (Fig. 4). The liquid-preserved mature fruits differ also in shape from the earlier description. They are slightly depressed spheroidal, with a diameter of about 3 cm. The fruit wall is about 1 cm thick. The septum, which had been conspicuously thick during most of the fruit development, is now compressed to form a narrow leathery sheet beside the seed (on the upper right in Fig. 1). The shrinking of the delicate inner mesocarp in the dried fruit had obviously affected only the diameter, but not the length of the fruit. Considering the distribution of lignified tissue (see ROHWER 1995, Fig. 11), this had to be expected. The seed is about 1 cm in diameter, and in the liquid-preserved 198 FLORA (1995) 190 material it could be demonstrated that the cotyledons store large amounts of starch. Otherwise, the new results confirm the earlier description. It is tempting to assume that the large-celled, delicate inner meso carp contributes to the buoyancy of the fruit described by PERRIER DE LA BATHIE (1951), but the precise mechanism remains unknown. The intercellular spaces, at any rate, are much too small to hold enough air for a floating tissue. The idea that the cells themselves were filled with air is discredited by both the presence of nuclei in at least some cells, and by the fact that the tissue was entirely collapsed in the dried material. In addition, very little air was found enclosed in this tissue in the liquid-preserved material. Alternatively, one might assume that the cells contained a liquid with a specific density less than that of water, but there was neither a trace of an oily substance in the available material, nor does the description by PERRIER DE LA BXTHIE (1951) gIve any clue that this might be the case. The presence of starch as a storage substance in the cotyledons is less unusual than it may appear. HEGNAUER (1969) still stated that the Oleaceae had starch-free seeds, but recently storage cotyledons full of starch were found in Jasminum sect. Unifoliolata (ROHWER 1994) and in some species of Chionanthus s.l. (unpublished data). While their occurrence is clearly systematically informative within Jasminum, it is too early to judge the significance of this character in the rest of the family. References HEGNAUER, R. (1969): Chemotaxonomie der Pflanzen. Vol. 5. Basel. PERRIER DE LA BATHIE, H. (1951): Notes biologiques sur les Oleacees de Madagascar et des Comores. Mem. Inst. Sci. Madagascar, Ser. B, BioI. Veg. 3: 175186. ROHWER, J. G. (1994): Seed characters in lasminum (Oleaceae): unexpected support for DE CANDOLLE'S sections. Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 116: 299-319. (1995): From flower to fruit in Noronhia emarginata (LAM.) THOUARS (Oleaceae). Flora 190: 35-43. Flora (1995) 190 199-200 © by Gustav Fischer Verlag lena Buchbesprechung JACOB, F., JAGER, E. J., OHMANN, E.: Botanik, 4., neu bearbeitete Auflage. (Uni-Taschenbiicher, vol. 1431.) Jena, Gustav Fischer Verlag 1994. - 609 pp., 213 figs., 30 tabs. - ISBN 3-334-60812-3. Botany is progressively splitting into separate fields whose abundant empirical data and range of related theory are treated in the ever broadening chapters and subchapters of a variety of books and printed matters. The present-day scientia amabilis obviously is no more a single scientia but a cluster of biological scientiarum whose objects and objectives are diffentiated according to different levels of biotic organisation, spatial dimension and time scale. Molecular level on one side and ecosystem level on the other side possibly create the extreme frontiers of the conventional botany. Teachers recurrently face the difficulty of defining the core area of botany and selecting optimum load of facts suitable for students of botany and associated fields ofbiology, ecology and applied phytotechnology (agriculture, forestry). Teachers in Secondary Schools and botanists themselves, after a longer period which elapsed after their graduation, search for summarized facts of innovated materials in order to brush up obsolete knowledge. Facts and theory do alter not only in the dynamic chapters of cellular structure and physiology, but also in the systematics whose taxonomical ranks and numbers quickly change following the abundant discoveries in the Tropics - and due to progress in karyology. The best way how to acquire the important news in botany is to consult a freshly revised textbook compiled by experienced university teachers who are persistently forced by students to keep their presentations up-to-date. The reviewed book, lying in front of us, can provide the hungry reader exactly this service. After a succession of two editions of the Kompendium der Botanik (1980,1983) and subsequent 3rd edition entitled Botanik (1987), three Professors at Martin-Luther-University Halle - Wittenberg submit a fully innovated 4th edition of a remarkable manual which deserves our attention. General selection of the topics and basic pattern of the book remain similar to the earlier editions, but the authors thoroughly innovated the text, figures and tables. In agreement with the program of the Uni-Taschenbiicher the authors left aside the plant genetics (Chapter 6.2 contains elements of genetics connected with evolution), plant geography, plant ecology and paleobotany, because these subjects were treated in other volumes of this book series. Nearly equal in size and illustrations are the three chapters covering chemistry, cellular structure and organs of the plant. Chapter 2 (30 pages, 15 Figs. and 5 Tables) gives an easy access to vital information on basic facts of plant body's chemistry, such as macro- and microelements, macromolecules, water, enzymes, nucleic acids, amino acids, proteins, hydrocarbons and lipids. Of similar length is Chapter 3 (38 pages, 15 Figs.) dealing in a comprehensive way with the cellular components - nucleus, plastids, mitochondria, cytoplasm, paraplasmatic structures and cell wall; the illustrations are instructive and take into consideration very recent interpretations of submicroscoFLORA (1995) 190 199