Wild orchids of the prairies and Great Plains region of North America

With Wild Orchids of the Prairies and Great Plains Region of North America, published by University Press of Florida, Paul Martin Brown offers the sixth in his series of regional orchid books. The others are: Wild Orchids of the Northeastern United States; Wild Orchids of Florida; Wild Orchids of Southeastern United States North of Peninsular Florida; Wild Orchids of the Pacific Northwest and Canadian Rockies; and Wild Orchids of the Canadian Maritimes and Northern Great Lakes Region. All but the first were published by the University Press of Florida. It is straightforward to deduce that Brown eventually intends to produce regional orchid floras covering the United States and Canada. If so, a significant increase in quality is mandated. In the preface Brown says ‘By combining the resources of keys, descriptions, photographs, and line drawings the user should be able, with relative simplicity, to identify all the orchids within the range of this book’. Sadly, that goal is not achieved due to errors, incomplete data, incorrect keys and blurred or indistinct photographs and drawings. A key word in the title defines the scope of this book: region. This is not a book about the orchids of prairies and the Great Plains. Rather this is a book about native orchids occurring in a region that encompasses North American prairies and the Great Plains. Brown tells us on page 5 that only a dozen or so of the 64 covered species grow in prairie and plains habitats. He does not tell us until page 241 that those species are Calopogon oklahomensis, C. tuberosus, Cypripedium candidum, Platanthera lacera, P. leucophaea, P. praeclara, Pogonia ophioglossoides, Spiranthes magnicamporum and S. tuberosa. The other species treated in the book grow in different habitats in mountains, forests and river valleys within the region. This region contains the entire states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas. Also covered are parts of nine neighbouring states, and southern portions of the Canadian Provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Wild Orchids of the Prairies and Great Plains Region of North America follows the four-part pattern established in Brown's earlier books. Part 1 has a brief description of the prairie and plains region, an introduction to orchids and a key to the genera. Part 2 has descriptions of covered species, each with corresponding range map, drawing and multiple photos, including photographs of recognized varieties and forms. If, as speculated, Brown intends to cover the United States and Canada with regional orchid books, this species treatment suggests he is reaching a point of diminishing returns. All species have been previously covered in at least one of his other books. As always Brown is current on nomenclature and gives sound reasons for accepting or rejecting proposed name changes or genus transfers. He recognizes Gymnadeniopsis for three species formerly included within Platanthera. He does not accept including Listera within Neottia as recently proposed. Part 3 is called ‘References and Resources’ and contains Provincial and state lists of native orchids. This is a valuable contribution for the seven states enclosed within this region because each now has a current list of native orchids with up-to-date nomenclature. Other sections discuss orchid statistics and list recent literature references for new taxa. In the statistics subsection is a listing of species that reach range limits in this region. Part 4 is called ‘Orchid Hunting’ and discusses suggested times and areas to visit in order to see some of the orchids blooming in the wild. At the end of Part 4 a subsection called ‘At The Limits’ repeats just over two pages of range limits already discussed in Part 3. There are two appendices. The first shows in which states or Provinces each species appears. The second gives a graphical representation of blooming season by species. These sets of data are valuable to both the novice and expert orchid hunter. Brown has a key to the genera in Part 1. Genus treatments in Part 2 have a separate key if more than one species is covered. The key to the genera begins on page 8, as do technical and editing lapses. Brown's key has the appearance of a typical contrasting couplet key, that is a key based on one half of the couplet contrasting details contained in the other half so the reader can make a decision about the plant in question. However, Brown's couplets are often not complete, so a full comparison cannot be made. He illustrates the keys with drawings, ideally to help interpret terminology. Unfortunately some of the drawings do not show the detail needed or are completely wrong. For example line 1a is ‘lip inflated, cup or sac shaped’. The drawing illustrating 1a is a rosette of leaves. Another drawing purports to illustrate an entire lip (undivided lip). Details of the lip cannot be discerned. The genus key contains errors for both Corallorhiza and Malaxis that will result in incorrect determinations. For example, the key maintains that the petals and sepals in Malaxis are similar. They are in fact very different in size and shape. Also in the genus key editing errors start to become a nuisance. Some errors are inevitable in any book, but in the space of a few pages we have lines out of place, rough draft place-holders not removed, and direction to an incorrect page number. Unfortunately errors in the keys continue in Part 2. The keys to Corallorhiza, Platanthera and Spiranthes each contain multiple errors and approach being unusable. The keys have internal contradictions and incorrect couplets and end up missing species or misidentifying species. The information is correct in the species discussions but by using those data in the keys multiple taxa will not key out. The keys, photographs and drawings were supposed to help identify plants. Some of the photographs are clear, but too many of them are out of focus and do not show critical characters needed to identify plants. Some of the drawings are acceptable but many do not convey clarifying information on the plants. Range maps with each species are supposed to show regional areas where species grow. However, in multiple cases data on the maps differ from the ranges discussed in the text. Discussions of species often leave the reader waiting for an answer that is not coming. For example, discussing Platanthera orbiculata Brown says ‘it is essential to understand the relationship’ with P. macrophylla. He says size does not matter except in the length of the spur. He then gives the length of the spur for P. orbiculata but not for P. macrophylla! The reader is left to ponder the critical spur-length comparison. This is perhaps Brown's weakest book due to the multiple errors, incorrect keys, poor quality photos and drawings, and incomplete lines of thought. A careful reading shows clearly that Brown knows the correct information and in fact dedicates his time to finding it. However, that message does not come across. This volume was obviously in need of better text and technical editing than it received. If the series is to continue these problems must be corrected.

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