Over the last decade enormous advances 10 our understandmg of the
functionmg of "tomata have been made Today, the overall pattern of
events 10 stomatal functloOlng IS generally under tood although some of
the fmer details of the mechaOlsm remam to be eluCIdated However, the
mechaOlsm whereby changmg CO levels wlthm a leaf control stom- 2 atal
movements remam one of the biggest puzzles The excellent text PhYSlOlogy
of Stomata, by Professors H Meldner and T A Mamfleld, I over 12 years
old and mevltably sections of It are now outdated Although numerou flOe
review, > on vanous aspects of stomata have been wntten 10 the
meantime, none could be conSidered as complete, compact appraisals of
the subject dnd thus to have super- seded the Meldner and Mansfield book
Now IS therefore an appropnate time to review the statu of our knowledge
about stomata This book encompas es all a pect of the subject except the
phySICal processes mvolved 10 the exchange of gases between a leaf and
ItS envI- ronment ThiS topIC IS dealt With very adequately 10 a vanety
of other books and reVlew, and the subject matter, With mmor differences
of opmlon, remams much the '>ame today as It was perhaps 20 years ago A
descnption of how to measure stomatal apertures and the use of
porometers has been restncted to a fmal chapter whICh also deals with
expenments which can be carned out by students Agam, there are
