Review

This book contains the proceedings of the special tapetum symposium, held during the VIII International Palynological Congress in 1992 (Aix-en-Provence, France). Twelve contributions demonstrate the importance of the tapetum in the reproduction of land plants. As the editors state: any tapetum malfunction causes pollen sterility. All papers deal with basic research, not with applied research such as plant breeding and genetic engineering. Although ‘evolution’ is listed in the title, very little (no special contribution) is devoted to this subject. It is a pity, because a phylogenetic theory has been suggested in the past, which should be treated in a book covering such a highly and diversely specialised structure. A taxonomic survey (table) listing the various tapetum types in different groups of land plants, and a section on the ‘14 functions’ attributed to the tapetum, and referred to on several occasions in the book, would be very convenient, and might stimulate own thougths on the evolutionary significance of diverging tapetum function and possible evolution scenarios. The first paper, on the role of the tapetum in pollen and spore dispersal, is very interesting in this context, but somewhat fuzzy and suffering from an unsatisfying table 1.