A photograph on the back of `Bermuda's Seashore Plants and Seaweeds', showing the irrepressible Dr. Wolfgang Sterrer riding jauntily along on the back of a massive whale shark, sets the tone for the latest volume in his series on Bermuda species.

Written with Dr. Ralph Cavaliere, a specialist in plants who admits to a certain bias toward seaweeds, this book achieves the seemingly impossible: while firmly rooted in meticulous scientific research -- which, it might be assumed, could be slightly off-putting to the layman -- the lively, `sit up and take notice' prose actually has the reader often laughing out loud.

"I've tried to make it easier to read and more user-friendly,'' Dr. Sterrer cheerfully admits. "We wanted to have a small, handy, inexpensive but attractive book that is fairly easy to read, that identifies some of the common things that live in Bermuda. But we have also ensured that it's accurate and throughout the book, we give pointers to further information that can be obtained.'' Pointing out that many people seem to be blissfully unaware that plants are essential to the sustenance of all life on this planet, Dr. Sterrer says, "Plants get their energy needs from the sun and they turn light energy, water, carbon dioxide and nutrients into living matter -- which is why they are so important. Without them, we would not be here. Plants are the only producers. If we kill all the plants we are pulling the rug out from under our own feet. We belong to the `animal' group on this earth and we are all consumers.'' Divided basically into two halves, the various chapters deal with land plants (trees, mangroves, shrubs, bushes, herbs and weeds, grasses and rushes and seagrasses) and protists, which includes a host of different seaweeds, algae, mushrooms, moulds, fungi and lichen.

In addition, there are numerous sidebars dealing with such intriguing general topics as `Green Sex -- High and Dry', `SOS -- The Green Slime is Coming', `Solar Power Plants, or How to Bottle Sun Beams'and `Green Sex -- and Other Ways of Making More Weeds'.

Revealing that the book had taken about two years to complete, Dr. Sterrer, who is Curator of the Bermuda Natural History Museum, explains that, as a marine biologist, "plants are not really my speciality. Yes,'' he concedes, "I grow plants, and love orchids for instance, but not from any botanical interest. Marine invertebrates are really my thing. So when Ralph Cavaliere -- who is a botanist -- came to me with a book he was planning on seaweeds of Bermuda I thought we could fit it into the series we are doing here at the Natural History Museum on the Island's marine history.'' The first volume in the series was Dr. Sterrer's `Marine Life' and he reveals that the third projected book will be on Bermuda's land animals: "It will have all the creepy-crawlies, slimy slugs, snails and spiders and we are going to throw in the vertebrates -- lizards, frogs and toads -- and all of the birds. The idea behind these books,'' he elaborates, "is to have this knowledge made readily accessible.

"We've had the knowledge for quite some time but most of it is not readily available, it's tucked away in about 3,500 books and papers and scattered all over the place, and going back a century or more. Many are difficult to find, so we are now getting all this information together on a data base and assembling it here in our Museum library. At present, this wealth of information is really only available to scientists and you have to wade through the convoluted prose of scientific writing.'' The research involved delves into the most recent literature. "Plants have only been recorded as living things fairly recently,'' he points out. "It has been shown that they warn each other when they find themselves being chewed on by a caterpillar, for instance -- they put out scents and then put out poisons on their leaves. Orchids are carniverous and eat flies. They snap shut as soon as a fly alights on one of their little hairs -- think of the `Venus fly trap'! Plants are very clever in synchronising their spawning and they trick animals into becoming the carriers of their `sweet little messages' -- pollen.'' Plants, he continues, do get eaten: "They don't want to be eaten, but they are! Most plants are rooted so they depend on vectors (carriers) to get their pollen and carry seed off. That, incidentally, is why fruit was invented.

Fruit is really an enticement to some animals to come and take it and, by doing so, spread the seed.

"The plants do invest some energy in making the job enticing and the animal unwittingly does the plant's bidding -- to spread the seed. It is quite true,'' he adds breezily, "that being rather quiet and placid in their private lives, plants don't have quite as much family gossip to share as animals. So, of course, although there is not any violence in this book, there is quite a lot of sex! We must not forget, either, that so many pharmaceuticals come from our plants.'' In the section on `What on Earth are seaweeds good for', for example, the authors explain that the use of marine seaweeds in ointments, anaesthetics, coughs, colds, hypertension and even venereal disease, has been well documented. Recent studies have also indicated that some algae may inhibit certain sarcomas and leukemia (in mouse cells, so far). They potential treasure trove of bioactive substances, they add, has only just begun to be screened.

Austrian-born Dr. Sterrer obtained his doctorate from the University of Vienna. "I loved animals as a small child and when my mother gave me a mask and snorkel I decided to be a marine biologist. I ended up going to law school but left after two weeks because I found it so boring.I had been in North Carolina as a visiting professor for a year and was then asked if I would like to become Director of the Bermuda Biological Station. So I stayed there for 16 years before coming here to the Museum.'' Dr. Cavaliere, who is professor of Biology at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, taught summer courses in marine biology at Bermuda's Biological Station and is the author of `The Marine Algae of Bermuda' and `The Conspicuous Flora and Fauna of Bermuda'.

`Bermuda's Seashore Plants and Seaweeds', which contains detailed descriptions of 165 species of Bermuda's plants which occur in and near the water, is illustrated with more than 150 line drawings and 104 colour plates, most of which were taken by Richard Ground, Kris Jensen, Robbie Smith and Dr. Sterrer himself. The 111 seaweeds listed have been selected from around 500 to be found in Bermuda's waters, one lichen (from around 90 varieties) and 53 flowering plants from more than 1,000 species.

All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Bermuda Zoological Society.