'... a book that anyone with an interest in phytogeography, or in the environmental determinants of plant species' ranges, must read and probably will want to own. It also must find a place in the library of any institution that teaches plant ecology of phytogeography - I will certainly recommend it to students, not as a textbook, which it is not, but to stimulate their interest and encourage them to ask critical ecological and phytogeographical questions. I hope that some at least of them will find it as stimulating as I do and as I found his earlier written work to be when I too was an undergraduate'. Brian Huntley, Diversity and Distribution