THE PUBLICATION DATES OF THE BULLETIN DE LA SOCIÉTÉ BOTANIQUE DE FRANCE (VOLS. 1‐25, 1854‐1878)

Abstract

SummaryKnowledge of precise publication dates for the instalments of a journal may be essential for nomenclatural purposes. In Vols. 1‐25 of the Bulletin de la Société botanique de France no such dates are recorded, nor can they be taken from the archives of the society which are no longer extant. In this paper publication dates are reconstructed from other sources. After a discussion of the complicated format of the Bulletin, the method of reconstruction of the dates is explained. Special attention is given to the importance of the original covers of the instalments. For each of Vols. 1‐25 the reconstructed publication dates, as well as some other bibliographical particulars, are assembled in a table. Notes for the tables present the evidence used for reconstruction of the dates.The unreliability of the year of publication as given on the title page of the volumes is shown. Some instalments of each volume were published in the next year only; this difference may increase to as much as four years. Temporal overlap of successive volumes often occurred: during a calendar year instalments of more than one volume were published in a sequence deviating from the sequence of the numbers of the volumes. When using bound volumes it must, moreover, be realized that from Vol. 11 the usual sequence of binding of the instalments differs significantly from their original sequence of publication.