Lowrie devotes entire pages to distribution maps that only have a few
dots in the corner. At his level of detail, I agree that the project
would be huge. Lowrie's pictures are admittedly georgeous, but little
information would be lost if they were more tightly cropped and fit four
to a page. Similarly, his distribution maps could show 4 species at a
time with different symbols, and could be limited to only the area of
interest rather than the whole southern half of Australia. With the
increase in scale, 4 maps could go on a page, for a total of 16 species.
For the concrete example, take a look at the Royal Horticultural
Society's Illustrated dictionary of Garden Plants. 2048 color photos, 8
per page, plus expanded index with textual descriptions and cultural
requirements of each plant. This all fits in a pocket edition on glossy
paper that is about the size of two Reader's Digests bound together.
A similar book, exhaustively covering the 800-odd CP taxa could use the
extra space (2048-800 = 1248 photos or 156 pages) to either show multiple
pictures for variable species or for dichotomous keys, distribution maps,
etc.
I'm talking more about a "Plant Dictionary" approach, rather than a
rambling, chatty monograph. The information would be heavily condensed,
highly tabularized and possibly cryptic - but it would all be available
in one volume.
The only question is whether it would make economic sense to publish such
a book?
> Apart from the work involved in putting such a book
> together, it would probably be out-of-date in terms of species names (and
> new plants) before it could be finished... Still, it would be nice to have
> such a book :-)
The photos wouldn't go out of date - only the names. It would be nice
to see notes in CPN from time to time that said something like: "BTW, _D.
coccicaulis_ as presented in the _CP Photographic Dictionary_ is now
officially recognized to be _D. natalensis_" :-).
-- Rick