The Forest Carpet

Forest and Bird, Volume 21, Issue 1, 1 February 1990, Page 5

The Forest Carpet

LAUDITS FOR BILL AND NANCY MALCOLM'’S recently published The Forest Carpet (Craig Potton Publishing) have come from no less an authority than David Galloway, co-ordinator of the Division of Lichens and Bryophytes at London's Natural History Museum. He writes that "the quality of the illustrations and book production make it something really special." As in their earlier New Zealand Alpine Plants Inside and Out, the close-up photography in this new book is almost unbelievable in its detail and depth of field. Never again will readers see mosses, lichens, liverworts, hornworts, fork-ferns and lycopods as merely the little-noticed "lesser plants" of the forest world. The Malcolms'’ innovative cameras and provocatively entertaining text take the reader on intimate journeys to those parts of our native forests We usually just trample under foot with scarcely a second thought. New Zealand's rainforests contain a spectacular abundance of bryophytes, forming a continuous forest carpet. Totally dependent on the forest environment, this carpet shrivels

and dies immediately the protective canopy is stripped away. The text and superb quality of the illustrations in this book will enhance our knowledge and appreciation of these sensitive plants and the role they play in the forest ecosystem. yf