T. C. Whitmore

I guess having lived for three years in Malaysia whetted my interest in Palms and the sheer variety I found a bit overwhelming. So I bought this book with the idea that it might help me learn and understand a bit more about Palms. Actually, the book is now quite old ....originally published in 1976 and this version a bit later. And it's one of those books that I have been meaning to read but never quite got around to it. To be honest, I still have not read every word in the book because the majority of the book is devoted to a systematic study of the individual genus and species. Malaya has 34 genera represented and some 220 species.....that's probably about 10% of the world-wide number of species. Basically, it's pretty hard to just read this sort of information. It is really more of use as a reference when trying to find out more about an individual species or genus.
I did find out some interesting things: the Travellers palm is not really a palm at all but a banana ally and bananas are giant herbs. And rattans are a source of drinking water for the jungle traveller.....just cut at the upper end first!. And rattan stems are commonly from 200-300 feet in length. A specimen of Calamus was exhibited in 1922 at 556 feet long.Actually, I liked this book in many ways much more than the much larger "Palms throughout the world". The book under review, actually has a couple of keys to the Palms so it's possible to identify species. And, although there are no coloured pictures, at least the pictures are relevant to the species being discussed and it is possible to identify that species. Also, the incidental details included in the descriptions are really interesting (such as being able to get water from the rattan, and the trunk of the sago trunk makes good rafters and flooring). Perhaps it is a bit light on botanical details. For example, I'm curious about how the trunk of the palm forms, grows, in width (very little) and height, The interior seems to be just a mass of fibres so where are the vascular bundles etc. I didn't get this information from the book. Anyway, overall I quite like at and give it four stars.… (mais)