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Italy belongs to the Mediterranean gene centre proposed by Vavilov and is rich in endemic rare plants and many vegetables, crops that belong to about 40 species. Horticultural landraces are a source of useful genes as well as a cultural heritage of extraordinary importance. They are characterized by a specific adaptation to the environmental and cultivation conditions of the particular area where they have been selected, so playing a crucial role in order to maintain and improve the efficiency and resilience of production systems. Vegetable crops, even if less threatened by genetic erosion than other crops, would benefit of in situ and ex situ conservation that are complementary both for taking in account agronomic, environmental and economic changes and for reintroducing lost germplasm into the original cultivation areas.

Japanese cedar [Cryptomeria japonica (Thun. ex L.f.) D. Don. (Taxodiaceae)] cultivars have become quite popular in the U.S. landscape and nursery industries. Their popularity is expected to increase as more attractive and adaptable horticultural selections gain recognition. Taxonomic problems include an inadequate inventory of selected variants cultivated in the United States, instability of names at the infraspecific taxonomic level, poor descriptions of the cultivars, and a lack of representative specimens and identification aids to help horticulturists identify unknown specimens. A study of Cryptomeria japonica cultivated in the United States is needed to address these problems.

The history of economic botany is briefly discussed. Economic plants are defined as those plants utilized either directly or indirectly for the benefit of Man. Indirect usage includes the needs of Man’s livestock and the maintenance of the environment; the benefits may be domestic, commercial, environmental, or aesthetic. The relationships between economic botany, agriculture, forestry, horticulture, and ethnobotany are discussed as well as the regional approaches to economic botany around the world and by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in particular.

The main fields of open ground ornamental plant cultivation in Hungary are: Woody ornamental nursery products (trees, shrubs, conifers) (950 ha cultivation area and 4-6 million plants sold per years.; Rose bushes (around 140 ha and 2-4 million bushes per year); Perennial plants (20-30 ha and 3-4 million plants per year); Dried flowers (200-250 ha of land and a production value of 5-700.000 HUF per year). The paper is discussing in detail the structure, development and tendencies of ornamental nursery production (with figures in tabulated form) and later gives shorter assessments of the present state and perspectives of the other three fields. Finally, a list is given of the Hungarian professional associations and unions, education and research centres involved in ornamental plant growing and trade.

Pollution has become one of the most important problems in urban and industrial environments and plants are considered to be one of the best means for diminishing its harmful effects. Installation of landscape plants is probably the cheapest and one of the most effective ways to reduce the adverse effects of polluted or stressful environments. Resistance or tolerance of various plant species against environmental stresses (e.g., pollution, drought, high salt content and poor aeration of soil, human damage) varies dramatically with type of plant species and cultivar. Nebraska and Hungary have many similarities in climate and geographical characteristics and researchers have accumulated considerable results in the field of plant environmental stress and pollution tolerance. However, time and history have prevented cooperative work until recently. Excellent connection and cooperation with the Univ. of Horticulture and Food, Budapest and several Hungarian nurseries was established by the Dept. of Horticulture, Univ. of Nebraska–Lincoln and the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum,which was an optimal foundation for this research project. Our overall goal was to mutually utilize the rich genetic materials and experience which have accumulated in these two regions during the past 5 decades. This continues to be accomplished by a systematic germplasm-exchange program and testing pollution- and stress-tolerant tree, shrub and herbaceous perennial cultivars, along with investigations of the physiological mechanisms of their stress reactions and biotechnological methods for mass-propagation. The presentation will highlight the main results of this several years long joint program.

THE plants making up the miscellany known as ‘field crops’ are distributed throughout the families of the flowering plants almost haphazard. The qualities which make them valuable in industry or as food for man or stock, such characters as the production of fleshy roots or shoots, starchy or oily seeds, long fibres, etc., are usually of little or no importance to the botanist tracing phylogenetic relationships (although when correlated with wider ecological and soil studies they may be of fundamental interest) and, in consequence, the study of field crop plants has been seriously neglected by academic botanists. Introduction to the Botany of Field Crops By Prof. J. M. Hector. (South African Agricultural Series, Vol. 16.) Vol. 1: Cereals. Pp. xii + 478 + xiii–xxxiv. Vol. 2: Non-Cereals. Pp. viii + 479–1128 + ix–xxxiii. (Johannesburg: Central News Agency, Ltd.; London: Gordon and Gotch, Ltd., n.d.) 70s. net.

Introduction Each year plant pathologists in Kansas report available information concerning significant or economically important plant diseases occurring in the state. Growth conditions during late spring and summer, 1968> were favorable for most crops. Fall sown crops, particularly wheat, were hard hit by drought during the winter and early spring. In the western third of the state much dry-land wheat was abandoned but in the eastern two-thirds, rains arrived in time to save the crop in most areas.

Diseases and Pests of Ornamental Plants By Pascal P. Pirone, Bernard O. Dodge, and Harold W. Rickett. Third edition. (An official publication of the New York Botanical Garden.) Pp. x + 775. (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1960.) 10 dollars.

PROF. BOWER'S text-book is so well known for its many excellent qualities that it needs no introduction to British students and teachers. It is evident, however, that during the sixteen years which have elapsed since the second edition was published, many fresh discoveries have been made which it is desirable to include in an up-to-date text-book. In preparing this new edition Prof. Bower has been assisted by Prof. J. M. F. Drummond and Dr. G. Bond. Botany of the Living Plant By Prof. F. O. Bower. Third edition. With the Assistance of Prof. J. M. F. Drummond and Dr. George Bond. Pp. xii + 700. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1939.) 25s. net.

THE veteran author of this well-known book must be warmly congratulated on the publication of its fourth edition. He has been fortunate in the selection of those who have aided him, Prof. J. M. F. Drummond and Dr. G. Bond in the third edition, and now Prof. C. W. Wardlaw in the present one. When the book first appeared in 1919, Prof. Bower was one of the few persons competent in Great Britain to write, single-handed, a general treatise on botany at the university level of instruction ; but the time is rapidly approaching when the single author must give place to a team of collaborators. This difficulty has been forestalled by Prof. Bower in his admirable choice of assistants, and fortunately the homogeneity of treatment characteristic of the first edition has been maintained. Botany of the Living Plant By Prof. F. O. Bower. Fourth edition. Pp. xii + 700. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1947.) 36s. net.