Reviews

The Sapotaceae are a medium-sized family with, in the tropics, a world-wide distribution. Because of the variability of several characters its taxonomy at genus and species level is rather complicated and hence its nomenclature sometimes confusing. Producing a checklist for such a family is a brave, major undertaking. The principal authors, Govaerts and Frodin, were assisted in the first place by Pennington (system, genera, Neotropics) and furthermore by W. Vink (Leiden, for Malesia) and L. W. Jessup (Indooroopilly, for Australia). As the title indicates the main body of the book (p. 25-337) is a checklist of names. Accepted names are given with author citation, publication place, distribution and synonyms. Genera are provided with some notes. With synonyms only author citation is given together with reference to the accepted name of which it is synonymous. The checklist is preceded by some general chapters and a selected bibliography. It is followed by lists of dubious and excluded taxa. Throughout the book several (unnumbered) pen and ink drawings are inserted.