Botanical Specimens Research Articles

One hundred and fifty years of ethnobotanical studies in North America

Even though the term “ethnobotany” was created and characterized by John Harshberger in 1896, ethnobotanical investigations were conducted more than a quarter of a century earlier. The pivotal publication in the United States of America was issued anonymously in the 1870 Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture of the US government. It marked the shift from the cursory observations on plants used by “native” peoples to a systematic documentation and analysis of plant-people interactions and relationships over time and space; this transition coincided with the expansion of the USA into the western provinces of the North American continent. To attend to the author’s curiosity of plants with cultural significance that he encountered during his field experience with indigenous peoples as well as published literature, Dr. Edward Palmer (1831-1911) produced “Food Products of the North American Indians” for the 1870 report of the Department of Agriculture. This article was the first of 17 publications that he generated based upon his field work, botanical and ethnological specimens, laboratory analyses, and literature from the western provinces of the USA and northern Mexico. After 1892, his contributions were archived in his private files or shared with botanical and anthropological colleagues for their specialized publications. Our contribution provides updated scientific nomenclature of the 124 plants mentioned in his 1871 article as well as examples of Palmer´s ethnobotanical observations. A diachronic comparison between the food plants registered in 1871 and those listed in subsequent ethnobotanical studies suggest that 87% of the plants continued to be consumed into the 20th century.

Women in the first three centuries of formal botany in southern Africa

Southern Africa is globally known for its considerable floristic diversity and for the past several centuries the region has attracted the research attention of both foreign and southern African botanists. While the majority of the plant scientists, including taxonomists, working on the regional flora was male, women have made significant contributions to the botany of southern Africa. We provide a comprehensive review of the role women played in botany in the region, from the earliest days of recorded botanical endeavour (c. mid-17th century) and for the ensuing c. 300 years. The women are exhaustively catalogued and the parts they played in advancing botany, and where appropriate some related plant-based activities, such as horticulture, are noted and assessed. It is shown that women played an important but generally underappreciated role in botanical research, fieldwork, and specimen collecting, as well as in herbarium management and institutional development.

“For I Asked Him Men's Questions”: Late Eighteenth-Century British Women Tourists’ Contributions to Scientific Inquiry

“We endeavoured with some tools our servants had, to carry some pieces of it with us,” Caroline Powys wrote of her visit to Stonehenge in 1759. “Tho’ our party were chiefly female,” she remarked, “we had no more curiosity than the learn'd gentlemen of the Royal Society.” Carolyn was not alone in challenging the gendered demarcation of scientific observation. From the second half of the century, British women travelers carefully packed minerals in cases, filled bags with botanical specimens, and roamed the shores in search of shells and seaweed. This article proposes that British women of the late eighteenth century used the empirical approach promoted by their polite scientific education to turn their leisured travels into knowledge-finding pursuits. The specimens and observations that they brought home played an overlooked role in allowing them to shape themselves as authoritative observers within the larger scientific knowledge-building enterprise that drew from the diffusion of Enlightenment classificatory systems, overseas exploration, and trade. This article brings to light four understudied eighteenth-century female empiricists: the mistress of Hardwick House, Whitchurch, Oxfordshire, Caroline Lybbe Powys (1738–1817); the first woman to publish a Grand Tour account, Lady Anna Miller (1741–81) of Batheaston, Somerset; the unmarried daughter of the rector of Thornton in Craven, Yorkshire, Dorothy Richardson (1748–1819); and the Whig political salon hostess, Lady Elizabeth Holland (1732–95). Each woman is of interest in her own right, but together, as I will argue, their scientific contributions add significantly to the ongoing investigation of the role that women played in developing Enlightenment science.

A Botanical Association Involving Elizabeth Pym, Peter Collinson, Sir Hans Sloane, and Admiral Sir Charles Wager

Elizabeth Pym wrote a letter in 1742 from the island of Nevis, in the Caribbean Sea, to Peter Collinson in London, describing various botanical samples she was sending him, including two coffee plants. The letter was found inside Volume II of Sir Hans Sloane’s “A Voyage to the Islands Madera …” housed at Oak Spring Garden Library in Virginia. Collinson received both volumes as gifts, with Volume I inscribed to him by Admiral Sir Charles Wager and Volume II inscribed by Sloane. The letter serves as a rare example documenting the collection of botanical specimens by a woman in the New World.

What's the choice for goji: Lycium barbarum L. or L. chinense Mill.?

Ethnopharmacological relevanceFor over one millennium, goji berries have been used traditionally as food and medicine in eastern Asia. In recent decades, it has become increasingly popular globally. However, the biocultural development of goji is poorly known. The botanical origin of goji is controversial: in many but not all modern regional or international quality standards, L. barbarum is accepted exclusively as the botanical origin of goji. Aim of the studyFocusing on historical, biogeographical, botanical, phytochemical and pharmacological data, the overarching aim is to understand the biological origin of goji's historical uses, as well as whether the two species can be used interchangeably. Materials and methodsThe taxonomic literature on L. barbarum and L. chinense were analysed, followed by a study of botanical specimens and fieldwork. Historical herbals and gazetteers were employed to define the historical producing areas and medical properties of goji. An identification of the species used in history was carried out. In a final step the phytochemical and pharmacological literature on the species was compared. Results and discussionDue to their morphological similarity and different accessibility, fruits of both L. barbarum and L. chinense have been used interchangeably as food and medicine at least since 682 CE. While the fruit of L. barbarum was recognized to be superior in quality, the fruit of L. chinense was commonly used as an equivalent because of its easier accessibility. Cultivation of L. barbarum in China since 1960s improved its availability, which likely lead to its exclusive use as source of goji in China. The long-term safe use with no reported major safety concerns supports that these two species both are useful sources for medicinal Lycium. ConclusionsMedicinal plants had been used traditionally long before they were named in scientific nomenclature system. Therefore, the understanding of traditional herbal knowledge and the adequate use of those traditional medicines require a reliable identification based on archival records. This study developed an approach for the identification of species used historically, with an integrated analysis of specimens, historical herbals, and national gazetteers. Additionally, their different chemical profiles and pharmacological activities indicate that they should not be used interchangeably. Further scientific evidence is required for their safe and effective use.

Objects of Nature and Scientific Knowledge on the Move: The Robert College Natural History Museum in Istanbul

This article focuses on the history of the Robert College’s Natural History Museum composed of geological, zoological, and botanical specimens from the 1860s to the 1940s. It is an attempt to re-establish the lost connections -the origins, past uses, and actors- about the college museum which does not physically exist today and whose scientific collections and archival sources have been scattered across different institutions and cities. Housing natural objects of botany, zoology and geology that spanned geological eras, political entities, nations, and cultures, from all over the world including Asia Minor, China, Brazil, France, etc., the college museum revealed an interactive network in scientific knowledge production and expertise transfer. The experiences of the museum’s scientific actors, varying from American educators to Ottoman-Armenian botanist, from a Russian-French biologist to a Hungarian entomologist, revealed the entangled history of knowledge production and expertise transfer and challenged the premise of the “centre” producing science and the “periphery” embracing and consuming it or the latter’s reliance on the former. Not only scientific actors but also non-scientific actors such as British diplomats or Istanbul Levantine tradespeople engaged with the college museum’s expansion. Moreover, as a significant work of art and labour, this museum attracted and impressed many local and international visitors/tourists. It displayed the unique properties of specimens removing them from the realm of the curious and served as a scientific and cultural venue where local and global natural objects and knowledge, as well as people interacted.

Clasificaciones y percepciones asociadas al conocimiento de la leña utilizada en una comunidad rural del Chaco Seco (Catamarca, Argentina)

Antecedentes y Objetivos: La leña constituye una de las principales fuentes de energía de las poblaciones rurales en diversos ambientes y ecosistemas alrededor del mundo. Es una prioridad establecer, desde la mirada local, los principales conjuntos de saberes y percepciones vinculados al uso de este recurso dendroenergético, definiendo los principales términos y categorías relacionados con la leña utilizada en la Sierra de Ancasti, Provincia de Catamarca, Argentina. Métodos: A partir de la técnica “bola de nieve” y por medio de entrevistas abiertas y semiestructuradas en 46 unidades familiares, caminatas guiadas, recolección de ejemplares botánicos, trabajo de herbario y revisión de la literatura, se establecieron las principales percepciones asociadas al uso y conocimiento de especies de leñas. Para obtener las categorías locales de clasificación y términos vernáculos asociados a la leña se propone un “juego de palabras”. Por medio de un diagrama de conjuntos y un Análisis de Componentes Principales (ACP) se identificaron las agrupaciones de especies según las categorías, los términos y las definiciones locales. Resultados clave: Los pobladores señalaron, a partir de 74 nombres comunes, a 53 especies de plantas leñosas que corresponden a 45 géneros y 23 familias botánicas. Destaca el alto porcentaje de especies de origen nativo (74%). En 456 menciones, para 40 especies, se registraron 25 términos relacionados con las propiedades de la madera de las plantas vinculadas con la combustión y el fuego. Los términos más usados por los pobladores para describir y clasificar la leña son: “fuerte” (52 menciones, asociadas a 11 especies), “firme” (39, 13 spp.), “linda” (33, 13 spp.) y “apagosa” (30, 11 spp.). Conclusiones: En la actualidad los pobladores reconocen, describen e identifican la leña utilizando mayoritariamente caracteres que se relacionan con la brasa; destacan como atributos positivos características vinculadas al poder calórico y a la duración. Se enfatiza la necesidad de abordar las dinámicas sociales relacionadas con el medio ambiente desde el propio campo, como una forma de conocer las prioridades locales y canalizar los esfuerzos para la conservación biológica y cultural.

The amazing travels of a great naturalist to Sarawak (Malaysia): Odoardo Beccari’s wanderings in Borneo, 1865–1868

ABSTRACT Odoardo Beccari (1843–1920) is considered to be one of the more important Italian naturalists of the nineteenth century, in particular for his pioneering explorations of the Malaysian Archipelago. During this period, he collected many thousands of botanical, zoological and ethno-anthropological specimens which are now conserved in natural history museums. Based on this conserved material, hundreds of species new to science have been described. In this study, we accurately reconstruct the travel itineraries of Beccari’s first trip to Borneo (Sarawak, 1865–1868). We link modern locations to the names he used, which were Italian transliteration of the local names of the time. We place these locations in time sequence on up-to-date georeferenced topographic maps. We expect our study to be useful to botanists, zoologists, anthropologists, curators of natural history museums and to nature conservators, as it provides precious information on the fauna and flora of Sarawak in the 1860s.

Potential wild ornamental flowering plants of Andhra Pradesh, India

A total of 258 angiosperm taxa representing 75 families were evaluated as potential wild ornamentals in Andhra Pradesh, out of the total 845 wild ornamental taxa recorded from a five-year field study. The largest family is Fabaceae with 23 species and the largest genus is Ficus with nine species. Present paper deals with the critical analysis and systematic enumeration of all the 258 taxa in a tabulated form with their botanical names, habitat, habit form, ornamental category, longevity, district-wise distribution and voucher specimens.

Discovered online: Hibiscus hareyae sp. nov. of sect. Lilibiscus (Malvaceae), threatened in coastal thicket at Lindi, Tanzania

SummaryThe spectacular new species with horticultural potential described in this paper, Hibiscus hareyae L.A.J.Thomson & Cheek, was identified during an assessment of online digitised botanical specimens of H. schizopetalus (Dyer) Hook.f. as part of a review of species in Hibiscus sect. Lilibiscus Hochr. A short updated description and delimitation of the horticulturally important sect. Lilibiscus is presented. Flowering and fruiting specimens of Hibiscus hareyae are readily distinguished from H. schizopetalus by their short (0.4 – 2 (– 4.5) cm long, non-articulated peduncle-pedicels vs (6 –) 8 – 11 (– 14) cm long, articulated peduncle-pedicels, and larger, broader epicalyx bracts (1.5 – 4 × 1 – 1.2 mm vs 0.6 – 1.5 × 0.1 – 0.3 (– 0.5) mm), the epicalyx forming a shallow cup 0.5 – 1 × 2 – 3 mm vs bracts appearing free. The absence of an articulation of the peduncle-pedicel of H. hareyae is unique within sect. Lilibiscus. The species is also well-marked from H. schizopetalus by other morphological differences in corolla and foliage, and in ecology and geography. Hibiscus hareyae has a restricted natural distribution as an element in deciduous coastal thicket, usually on coral rag formations, sometimes in or near mangrove, in Lindi Province, southern Tanzania. It ranges from the Indian Ocean coast to as much as 20 km inland, from about 8.5oS to 10oS (c. 140 × 20 km) and is assessed as Vulnerable (VU B2ab(iii)). Hibiscus hareyae has high ornamental potential but is unknown in cultivation.

Digitization of US Herbaria - How close did we get to the 2020 goal?

A discussion session held at a National Science Foundation-sponsored Herbarium Networks Workshop at Michigan State University in September of 2004 resulted in a rallying objective: make all botanical specimen information in United States collections available online by 2020. Rabeler and Macklin 2006 outlined a toolkit for realizing this ambitious goal, which included: a review of relevant and state-of-the-art web resources, data exchange standards and, mechanisms to maximize efficiencies while minimizing costs. a review of relevant and state-of-the-art web resources, data exchange standards and, mechanisms to maximize efficiencies while minimizing costs. Given that we are now in the year 2020, it seems appropriate to examine the progress towards the objective of making all US botanical specimen collections data available online. Our presentation will attempt to answer several questions: How close have we come to meeting the original objective? What fraction of “digitized” specimens are minimally represented by a catalog number, a determination, and/or a photograph? What fraction has been thoroughly transcribed? How close have we come to attaining a seamlessly integrated, comprehensive, and national view of botanical specimen data that guides a stakeholder to appropriate resources regardless of their entry point? What “holes” in this effort still exist and what might be required to fill them? How close have we come to meeting the original objective? What fraction of “digitized” specimens are minimally represented by a catalog number, a determination, and/or a photograph? What fraction has been thoroughly transcribed? How close have we come to attaining a seamlessly integrated, comprehensive, and national view of botanical specimen data that guides a stakeholder to appropriate resources regardless of their entry point? What “holes” in this effort still exist and what might be required to fill them? Given our interest in the success of both the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), as well as the overwhelming likelihood that either one of these initiatives is the usual entry point for someone seeking US-based botanical data, we approached the answers to the above questions by first crafting a repeatable data download and processing workflow in early July 2020. This resulted in 25.6M records of plant, fungi, and Chromista from 216 datasets available through GBIF and 32.8M comparable records available through iDigBio from 525 recordsets. We attempted to align these seemingly discordant sets of records and also chose Darwin Core terms that were best suited to match the four hierarchical levels of digitization defined in the Minimal Information for Digital Specimens (MIDS) (van Egmond et al. 2019). During the analysis/comparison of the datasets, we found several examples where the number of data records from an institution seemed much lower than expected. From a combination of analyzing record content in GBIF/iDigBio and consulting regional/taxonomic portals, it became evident that, besides datasets only being included in either GBIF or iDigBio, there was a significant number of records in regional/taxonomic portals that were not yet made available through either GBIF or iDigBio. Progress on digitization has benefited greatly from the US National Science Foundation's creation of the Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) program, and funding of the 15 Thematic Collection Networks (TCN). The launching of new projects and the ensuing digitization of herbarium collections have led to a multitude of new specimen portals and the enhancement of existing software like Symbiota (Gries et al. 2014). But, it has also led to insufficient data sharing among projects and inadequately aligned data synchronization practices between aggregators. Consistency in terms of data availability and quality between GBIF and iDigBio is low, and the chronic lack of record-level identifiers consistently restricts the flow of enhancements made to records. We conclude that there remains substantial work to be done on the national infrastructure and on international best practices to help facilitate collaboration and to realize the original objective of making all US botanical specimen collections data available online.

Revising Poeppig´s Collections and Names of Connaraceae from Nova Genera ac Species Plantarum

Abstract—During his expedition to South America, Eduard F. Poeppig collected about 17,000 botanical specimens, of which three belong to Connaraceae. These specimens were used to describe more than 500 species in the three volumes of Nova Genera ac Species Plantarum. In the third volume, Poeppig (1845) described two new species of Connaraceae: Omphalobium rubrum (=Connarus ruber) and Connarus macrophyllus (=Pseudoconnarus macrophyllus). As Poeppig´s descriptions are not accompanied by a clear indication of type specimens, these two names were afterwards lectotypified. A revision of Poeppig’s collections, descriptions and illustrations indicates that the lectotype of Omphalobium rubrum needs to be corrected, and a second step of lectotypification is required for Connarus macrophyllus. By correcting a lectotype, a reestablishment is also proposed. Aside from the nomenclatural updates, this work expands the description of the two species published by Poeppig (1845) as well as the reestablished taxon, and illustrates and discusses their taxonomy and distribution.

West Virginia University Herbarium Digitization Projects

This poster summarizes three recent digitization projects at the WVU Herbarium. The NSF “Keys to the Cabinet” digitizing and georeferencing grant, targeting botanical specimens from across the southeastern U.S., concluded at the WVU Herbarium in June 2019. More than 92,000 plant collections in 223 families, 1314 genera and 4639 species from the 12-state region were imaged and uploaded to the SERNEC portal. With the end of this grant, the WVU Herbarium began work on two new projects. A multi-year U.S. Forest Service contract was funded to support student labor for invasive plant research. The initial semesters of this project involved transcribing label data from WVU Herbarium records worldwide for seven species. Current work is focused on images from the iDigBio portal: Arthraxon hispidus and Polygonum caespitosum are completed; Glechoma hederacea and Stellaria media are ongoing. The final project is a 3-year NSF Pteridophyte Collections Consortium grant. Funding is distributed among nine research centers to digitize fern herbarium specimens and fossils. The WVU Herbarium is participating through a data hub at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. More than 8500 WVU Herbarium fern collections have been imaged and will be linked to specimen label information at the award website. These three projects demonstrate a sampling of digitization foci in taxonomy, floristics, and ecology.

A complete digitization of German herbaria is possible, sensible and should be started now

Plants, fungi and algae are important components of global biodiversity and are fundamental to all ecosystems. They are the basis for human well-being, providing food, materials and medicines. Specimens of all three groups of organisms are accommodated in herbaria, where they are commonly referred to as botanical specimens.The large number of specimens in herbaria provides an ample, permanent and continuously improving knowledge base on these organisms and an indispensable source for the analysis of the distribution of species in space and time critical for current and future research relating to global biodiversity. In order to make full use of this resource, a research infrastructure has to be built that grants comprehensive and free access to the information in herbaria and botanical collections in general. This can be achieved through digitization of the botanical objects and associated data.The botanical research community can count on a long-standing tradition of collaboration among institutions and individuals. It agreed on data standards and standard services even before the advent of computerization and information networking, an example being the Index Herbariorum as a global registry of herbaria helping towards the unique identification of specimens cited in the literature.In the spirit of this collaborative history, 51 representatives from 30 institutions advocate to start the digitization of botanical collections with the overall wall-to-wall digitization of the flat objects stored in German herbaria. Germany has 70 herbaria holding almost 23 million specimens according to a national survey carried out in 2019. 87% of these specimens are not yet digitized. Experiences from other countries like France, the Netherlands, Finland, the US and Australia show that herbaria can be comprehensively and cost-efficiently digitized in a relatively short time due to established workflows and protocols for the high-throughput digitization of flat objects.Most of the herbaria are part of a university (34), fewer belong to municipal museums (10) or state museums (8), six herbaria belong to institutions also supported by federal funds such as Leibniz institutes, and four belong to non-governmental organizations. A common data infrastructure must therefore integrate different kinds of institutions.Making full use of the data gained by digitization requires the set-up of a digital infrastructure for storage, archiving, content indexing and networking as well as standardized access for the scientific use of digital objects. A standards-based portfolio of technical components has already been developed and successfully tested by the Biodiversity Informatics Community over the last two decades, comprising among others access protocols, collection databases, portals, tools for semantic enrichment and annotation, international networking, storage and archiving in accordance with international standards. This was achieved through the funding by national and international programs and initiatives, which also paved the road for the German contribution to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).Herbaria constitute a large part of the German botanical collections that also comprise living collections in botanical gardens and seed banks, DNA- and tissue samples, specimens preserved in fluids or on microscope slides and more. Once the herbaria are digitized, these resources can be integrated, adding to the value of the overall research infrastructure. The community has agreed on tasks that are shared between the herbaria, as the German GBIF model already successfully demonstrates.We have compiled nine scientific use cases of immediate societal relevance for an integrated infrastructure of botanical collections. They address accelerated biodiversity discovery and research, biomonitoring and conservation planning, biodiversity modelling, the generation of trait information, automated image recognition by artificial intelligence, automated pathogen detection, contextualization by interlinking objects, enabling provenance research, as well as education, outreach and citizen science.We propose to start this initiative now in order to valorize German botanical collections as a vital part of a worldwide biodiversity data pool.

John Dallachy (1804–71): from gardener to botanical collector

The citation ‘Rockingham Bay, J. Dallachy’ is prominent in late nineteenth-century taxonomic publications associated with the flora of tropical Queensland. John Dallachy (1804–71) was employed as a botanical collector by the Melbourne Botanic Garden under the directorship of Baron Ferdinand von Mueller. Between 1864 and 1871, Dallachy resided in the Rockingham Bay area where he collected ~3500 botanical specimens of which ~400 were described as new taxa of flowering plants, ferns, fungi and bryophytes, making him Mueller’s most prolific collector of type specimens, apart from Mueller himself. In this, the first of two articles about Dallachy, we outline the origin, and development of this successful botanical collaboration, identifying the experiences and qualities that prompted Dallachy to become a botanical collector, the friendship that formed between Mueller and Dallachy in the face of Dallachy’s reversal of fortunes at the Melbourne Botanic Garden, and the circumstances that led to Dallachy and Mueller’s shared project to investigate the botanical riches of the floristically diverse Wet Tropics Bioregion.

Chairman Mao Is Dead!

Chairman Mao Is Dead! Tang Danhong (bio) Translated by Anne Henochowicz Translator’s Note: Mao died two months after the 1976 Tangshan earthquake killed anywhere from 240,000 to 779,000 in the northeastern port city of Tianjin (the far lower official estimate conflicts with the initial numbers reported by the Hebei Province Revolutionary Committee), and the “feudal” notion still lingered that natural disaster means the ruler has lost the Mandate of Heaven. As an “heir to the revolution,” Tang wasn’t aware of such portent, and as a child, her greatest lament was that the earthquake didn’t amount to much at home in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. The link between disaster and death had not yet revealed itself to her, nor to her peers. Decades later, in 2008, the Wenchuan earthquake would strike not far from her hometown, killing 70,000 and leaving another 18,000 missing. Over 5,000 of the dead were children, crushed under the rubble of their flimsy school buildings. Tang writes in a deceptively simple style. I laughed out loud while translating some of the passages in this story. Sadly, most of Tang’s puns didn’t make it in translation. Her story opens with her staring at caterpillars, which in Mandarin are called máomaochóng 毛毛虫, literally “hairy bugs.” The character for hair, máo 毛, is the same as Mao Zedong’s surname, and being a bug (chóng) can also refer to obsession—giving máomaochóng a third meaning, “Mao fanatic.” I played with using “maomao bugs” instead of “caterpillars,” but decided it was too confusing. There’s a second beastly allusion toward the end of the story, when Tang’s aunt recounts how a woman from the country mourned Lord Mao (Máo Zhŭ) with such a thick rural twang that it sounded like máozhū (wild boar). I did my best to preserve this pun by having the woman lament “Chairman Sow.” I don’t know if “Mao” could really be misheard as “sow,” but I liked the rhyme. ah When Chairman Mao died, I was looking at caterpillars. Here’s what was going on when it happened: every summer break, my terrifying father went to the Aba Valley to collect botanical specimens and research the cultivation of the native yellow Himalayan fritillary. It was just my mother and me at home. As my parents used to say, when the cat’s away, the mice come out to play. I always liked summer best, but that summer was especially great, because everywhere it was all about the earthquake. Everyone was anxious. An “earth wind” even tore through Chengdu, and we all had to move into earthquake tents. So kids all sat around waiting for the ground to [End Page 96] move, not wanting to miss the chance for a good show. Finally the earthquake came to Songpan and Pingwu, and then the earth winds were done, and it was decided that all the children “might as well” be moved back into their houses. They wailed, “That was it? We didn’t even feel anything!” I was happy, though, because my dad was in Songpan, which was the epicenter of the quake. He wrote a letter home that sounded like his last will and testament. He said he had to stay and suffer with the people, that he couldn’t abandon them at a time like this. If something should happen, he wanted my mom to raise me to be an heir to the revolution. Looking back on all their petty arguments about me, about my strengths and weaknesses, he told my mother that he had concluded I was like a rotten piece of wood—I could still be carved. While my mom tearfully read the letter to me, I thought, The “earth winds” are long gone, and everyone’s living in tents. Besides, the earthquake is over, and Dad can’t die. What’s there to cry about? At the time I thought they were just being dramatic. But when I heard that he would be coming home later than planned, I was secretly overjoyed! I also remember that the letter didn’t end with “I...

John Dallachy (1804–71): collecting botanical specimens at Rockingham Bay

Warning Readers of this article are warned that it may contain terms, descriptions and opinions that are culturally sensitive and/or offensive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. John Dallachy (1804–71) was employed by Baron Ferdinand von Mueller to collect plants as a pioneer resident of Cardwell, Rockingham Bay, Queensland, 1864–71. Mueller’s longest-serving paid botanical collector, Dallachy was also the most prolific collector of types among Mueller’s large network of collectors. In part, Dallachy’s success can be attributed to his collecting methods and intensive travels around the species-rich Rockingham Bay area. In part, also, Dallachy was indebted to fellow European pioneers for support (which was acknowledged in the eponymy of new taxa), and to local Indigenous and South Sea Islander people. Dallachy managed these relationships in a context of frontier war as local Indigenous people resisted being displaced by European colonists. Nevertheless, Dallachy’s opportunity to work as a full-time professional botanical collector, and the rapidity with which his new specimens were identified and published was, to a large extent, due to Mueller. The partnership with Mueller led to Dallachy contributing ~3500 specimens from Rockingham Bay to the Melbourne Herbarium of which ~400 taxa were considered new to Western science.

Pitcher Plant Plastination: Preserving Botanical Specimens For Education And Display

Pitcher Plant Plastination: Preserving Botanical Specimens For Education And Display

EJT editorial standard for the semantic enhancement of specimen data in taxonomy literature

This paper describes a set of guidelines for the citation of zoological and botanical specimens in the European Journal of Taxonomy. The guidelines stipulate controlled vocabularies and precise formats for presenting the specimens examined within a taxonomic publication, which allow for the rich data associated with the primary research material to be harvested, distributed and interlinked online via international biodiversity data aggregators. Herein we explain how the EJT editorial standard was defined and how this initiative fits into the journal’s project to semantically enhance its publications using the Plazi TaxPub DTD extension. By establishing a standardised format for the citation of taxonomic specimens, the journal intends to widen the distribution of and improve accessibility to the data it publishes. Authors who conform to these guidelines will benefit from higher visibility and new ways of visualising their work. In a wider context, we hope that other taxonomy journals will adopt this approach to their publications, adapting their working methods to enable domain-specific text mining to take place. If specimen data can be efficiently cited, harvested and linked to wider resources, we propose that there is also the potential to develop alternative metrics for assessing impact and productivity within the natural sciences.

KEW GARDENS AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE SCHOOL MUSEUM IN BRITAIN, 1880–1930

AbstractThe idea of the school museum as an active resource for object-based learning played an important but now neglected part in programmes of educational reform during the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth. In this article we focus on the role of the Kew Museum of Economic Botany in supplying schools with botanical specimens and artefacts for their own museums during this period, to support a broad variety of curricular agendas, from nature study to geography and beyond. The evidence suggests that this scheme was remarkably popular, with demand among teachers for museum objects outstripping supply, and increasingly being met in other ways. Seen from the perspective of Kew, the distribution of specimens, artefacts, and visual materials to schools was a way of extending the ethos of economic botany into the classroom. For the teachers who requested specimens in large numbers, and the pupils who studied and handled them, however, such objects may have had other meanings and uses. More broadly, we propose new avenues for study that can help us to better appreciate the ways in which museum objects, expertise, and practices moved across professional, institutional, and increasingly global boundaries in this period.