A FORGOTTEN ALSATIAN BOTANIST: MARCUS MAPPUS FILIUS (1666-1736)

Abstract

The generic name Mappia Jacq. (Icacinaceae), listed with the number 4693 in Dalla Torre & Harms' Genera Siphonogamarum (p. 293; 1901), was proposed for conservation first by R. Mansfeld in Kew Bulletin 1935: 431 (1935), and subsequently by Charles Baehni in Candollea 7: 170 (1936). It was eventually added to the list of Nomina generica conservanda in Kew Bulletin 1940: 111 (1940), in Brittonia 6: 73 (1947), and in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature of 1952, 1956 and 1961. The two earlier homonyms Mappia Heister ex Adanson, Families des Plantes, 2: 193 (1763) of the Labiatae, and Mappia Schreber, Gen. Plant., ed. 8, 2: 806 (1791) of the Dilleniaceae made its conservation necessary. The authors of these two rejected homonyms (for their taxonomic discussion, see Baehni, 1936, I.e.) did not properly state whether they were honouring Marc Mappus the father (1632-1701), or Marc Mappus the son (1666-1736), the subject of the present article. But it is otherwise for the name Mappia Jacq., which is now conserved: it was established in 1797 by Nicolas Jacquin (1727-1817) in his splendid folio work Hortus Schoenbrunnensis (1: 22, t. 47) in memoriam Marci Mappi, ob Historiam plantarum alsaticarum posthumam bene meriti*. This Historia Plantarum Alsaticarum, the only botanical work published by Marc Mappus the son (1666-1736), is the most important 18th-century publication on the flora of Alsace, and is a beautifullyprinted catalogue in quarto of the plants of this region, alphabetically arranged and illustrated with seven copper-plates. The descriptive text does not contain anything really new, but gives many interesting comments on the distribution, folklore, vernacular names (in French and German), and the medical and practical use of the plants concerned. The pre-Linnaean botanical literature is very carefully quoted, particularly C. Bauhin's Pinax (1623). The book still has great value and interest as an early flora with precise floristic