Flora was His Interest and Prime Course of Study: A Botanical Career for W.E. Ricker Disappears

Synopsis Bill Ricker’s career went through many twists in his academic years. He had taken botany in his senior matriculation year at high school and he had collected over 100 species of flora before commencement of university life. At the conclusion of his first university year, he set out over the summer to collect a much larger sample of species, primarily from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence ecoregion, to fulfil a requirement for a second year botany course (spermatophytes). He identified about 390 species, and some 254 were collected and pooled with those from previous years to make a final submission of 354 spermatophyte species. Field plant identification continued in each academic year thereafter, in concert with collections and identifications of aquatic invertebrates in his summer projects while under the employment of the Ontario Fisheries Research Laboratory. At the conclusion of his undergraduate years, Bill had taken more courses in botany than in zoology, and it was the summer employment that had really prepared him for postgraduate work in fisheries biology, which was ecologically oriented. When Bill left Ontario in the autumn of 1931 he had identified over 600 species of plants, excluding lower cryptogams, but including many aquatic species of higher plants. In western North America Bill’s botanical career began at Cultus Lake in 1931. He again studied all aspects of the basin while employed with the federal government, and from the work he assembled a Ph.D. thesis. At the time of thesis completion he had identified over 300 species of flora, including alpine plants at timberline, 1500 – 1800 m above lake level, and planktonic algae in its water column. In 1939, after more field fisheries work in the Fraser River basin of British Columbia, Bill accepted a position with the biological staff at Indiana University. In this period which concluded in 1950 he identified another 50 – 110 species of flora, all in the Carolinian ecoregion, and hitherto not seen by him. Considering all floral classes, Bill’s eastern North American repertoire had by then added up to 791 species, representative of more than 112 families of plants. Returning west for the remainder of his life, new identifications elsewhere added to his Cultus Lake list which slowly added up to about 1000 species for the west coastal region of North America. Flora was also identified elsewhere in the mid-continental region of North America, in Eurasia where the Abisko region of Lappland was a highlight, and in South America and New Zealand. Records of his botanical prowess, were kept primarily in his diaries, which began in 1923 and were maintained consistently to the end of 1934, and thereafter intermittently to 1949. The diaries reveal that his career as a budding botanist was subtly hijacked by a wily Professor W.H.K. Harkness in the rival Biology Department who out-manoeuvred Drs. R.B. Thompson and R.A. Sifton in the Botany Department. The former always managed to employ Bill in summer and keep him occupied in the department’s labs during the autumn and winter and spring, tying up any free time when the botanist had approached him on lab work. Certainly, the botany courses taken and which he excelled at were more appropriate for his aquatic ecological pursuits. Salesmanship won the day for the zoologists, but Bill was a life-long botanist regardless of whatever else he studied or managed throughout his professional career. The last days of his life had a botanical conclusion.     

The controversial biography of Paolo Boccone (1633–1704) and his “Grand Tour” from the Mediterranean to northern Europe

Paolo Boccone (1633–1704), a Sicilian botanist of the second half of the seventeenth century, was a figure who still arouses interest in the emblematic character of his scientific experience, which is connected with a personal history that is still in many ways mysterious and unexplored. Elements which help us understand the complexity of the character and the cultural and material difficulties that he had to face are to be found in his works. They have allowed us to build up a picture of his tireless activity as a traveller and his active presence in the majority of European cultural centres of the time.     

Joseph Dalton Hooker's Ideals for a Professional Man of Science

During the 1840s and the 1850s botanist Joseph Hooker developeddistinct notions about the proper characteristics of aprofessional man of science. While he never articulated theseideas publicly as a coherent agenda, he did share his opinionsopenly in letters to family and colleagues; this privatecommunication gives essential insight into his and his X-Clubcolleagues' public activities. The core aspiration of Hooker'sprofessionalization was to consolidate men of science into adutiful and centralized community dedicated to nationalwell-being. The nation in turn owed the scientific community forits ministration. When the government bestowed funds and statuson men of science it was rewarding science – not purchasing it. His proposed reforms were piecemeal, immediate, and above allpractical. He harbored no taste for vast millenariantransformation, and rested his conception of scientificprofessionalism upon a respectable High Victorian foundation ofpatronage and pillars of duty, reciprocity, intimacy, andinequality. The process of professionalization he envisioned wasas much shrewd compromise between existing interests as avindication of principle. His power and prestige from themid-1850s onward gave him considerable ability to carry out hisreform program, although his general success did occasion someundesired consequences for the status of natural-historypursuits. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

植物学与中草药物研究

植物学和医药在科学启蒙时期是合而不分的。东西文化相同。中国古代本草(ancient Chinese materia medica),欧洲中世纪的药物书籍(European medieval herbals),共同证明这件史实。欧洲17—18世纪经典的植物著述,是那个时代医生们业余的工作成果;19世纪亚洲美洲的植物志,以及植物地理知识,基本上是舍弃医药职业从事植物研究之先锋植物学家的成绩。现代植物学知识和方法,更是研究中草药不能缺少而且不可忽略的基础。试举三例说明,职业植物学家如何以正确鉴定和合法命名,解决国际间药物交流问题,并怎样以植物解剖知识澄清药材商品素质混乱情形。凡是能力强工作负责的药用植物学家,都是热心的环境保护者,因为他们工作的地方,既是标本馆实验室,又是野外的大自然;他们确知,自然没有任何取之不尽用之不竭的资源,更没有丰富的药物资源。加之以人们无情地挖掘,任意地采集,无数有药用价值的植物,己遭到不可挽救的毁灭,绝了种!有的也接近灭绝的危运。再看未来,植物学家除了研究植物本体之外,更加上唤起民众爱惜自然植被保护环境的重要职责,并且筛选有利于人畜保健的植物,逐一研究其生境与其成活的环境条件,和农业科学家合作引种驯化,以达成合理利用中草药植物资源的要求。     

药用植物学立体化课程体系的构建与实践

药用植物学是医学院中药、药学等相关专业和高等农业院校中药资源开发与利用等专业的专业基础课,是培养相关专业学生掌握和运用药用植物形态解剖学及系统分类学的基本知识和技能,准确识别和鉴定药用植物种类,保证临床用药准确有效的重要课程。课题组通过整合药用植物学教学内容,建立多元化的教学方法,构建多层次实践教学体系,建立合理的综合性考核评价体系,培养学生双创能力。     

“植物堂”于双语教学的实践与思考

双语教学是在现代教学经济国际化的影响下所形成的一种新兴教育形式。结合曲靖师范学院的植物学教学实践,总结和分析了植物学双语教学过程中的经验及其实施过程中遇到的主要困难。提出了引进并完善外文原版教材、加强教师队伍建设、提高学生综合素质、培养学生学习兴趣、实施多样化教学方式等完善植物学双语教学的相应对策。最后提出了“保持-过渡-双语思维”的双语教学改革模式,这对于双语教学理论系统化的形成有一定的参考价值。     

Arabidopsis: two-hundredths anniversary of its name and the possibility of a hidden universal regulatory signal

Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology - In 1821, the Swiss botanist A. P. de Candolle (1788–1841) introduced the term “Arabidopsis” to denote a group of dicotyledonous...     

A bibliography of botanical cladistics: 1. 1981

A listing of papers and dissertations either using some type of cladistic analysis on a plant group or dealing with theoretical cladistics and written by a botanist. In addition, to facilitate studies in vicariance biogeography, this list includes the distribution of the taxa treated in the various papers.     

On the mountain top with Mr. Osterhout

George E. Osterhout, an amateur botanist, collected mainly in Colorado between 1893 and 1936. A brief account of his career and character; a list of his proposed new species and new combinations; and his bibliography.     

Sezione Lombarda

Summary

List of plants collected by the late botanist Pietro Rossi, of Milano, near Macugnaga (Piemonte).     

PAUL FURSE AND HIS PLANT COLLECTIONS AT KEW

Summary.  Paul Furse was an accomplished botanical artist and amateur botanist who, after his retirement from the Navy, spent several years searching for bulbs, travelling to remote locations in the Near East. He went to Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and collected many plants which are still in cultivation today. His pioneering expeditions and enthusiasm inspired a generation of botanists to explore these areas.     

Zhengli Li （Cheng-Lee Lee） 1918-2009

Professor Zhengli Li (Cheng-Lee Lee), a well-known botanist in China, former deputy Editor-in-Chief (1979-1987) of Acta Botanica Sinica (predecessor of JIPB) and Professor of Peking University, passed away at the age of 91 in Beijing on 22 SeDtember 2009.     

The Portuguese naturalist Correia da Serra (1751–1823) and his impact on early nineteenth-century botany

This paper focuses on the contributions to natural history, particularly in methods of plant classification of the Portuguese botanist, man of letters, diplomat, and Freemason Abbé José Correia da Serra (1751–1823), placing them in their national and international political and social contexts. Correia da Serra adopted the natural method of classification championed by the Frenchman Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, and introduced refinements of his own that owe much to parallel developments in zoology. He endorsed the view that the classification of plants should be based on the establishment of affinities rather than of differences. The emphasis on affinities went hand in hand with the development of the concept of symmetry. This idea was introduced by Correia da Serra in systematics and was adopted and further developed by his friend, Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle. Correia da Serra also argued that Cryptogamia reproduce sexually, advocated extension of methods of comparative anatomy from zoology to botany, and applied them to the study of fruits. Correia da Serra was one among many of the estrangeirados, Portuguese``Europeanized' intellectuals who traveled extensively abroad in most cases to escape political or religious persecution at home. The estrangeirados were important contributors to 18th and 19th century European thinking. Most of the estrangeirados were pivotal in the introduction, dissemination and propagation of the new sciences in Portugal, but unlike most of his fellow estrangeirados, Correia da Serra was also an innovative man of science in his own right. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An unpublished letter by Richard Spruce on the theory of evolution

The unparalleled plant explorations of the British botanist Richard Spruce in the Amazon Valley and the northern Andes from 1849 to 1864 are now well known in scientific circles. What is not so widely recognized, however, is the depth of philosophy characteristic of this man, a depth of philosophy nurtured especially during his many years of living alone in closest association with nature in the forests of South America.     

Jacob Corwin Blumer,Arizona botanist

Jacob Corwin Blumer, a Swiss-born botanist, collected several thousand plants in southern Arizona, concentrating on the Chiricahua Mountains, Cochise County, and the Rincon Mountains, Pima County. At least 28 of these collections were later designated as type specimens. He published 23 papers on a variety of topics, including plant ecology and plant geography. His botanical career was brief, lasting from 1906 to 1917. He spent the latter half of his life as a farmer in Minnesota.     

植物花色素苷生物合成的转录调控

转录调节是植物花色素苷生物合成途径中调节其结构基因表达的重要环节之一。近十多年来,通过调节转录因子的表达激活或抑制有效地调控植物中花色素苷的合成成了众多植物学家研究的重点。现简要介绍了花色素苷的合成运输过程与液泡的沉积扣押、转录因子与调控及转录调节在遗传改良中的应用等方面的研究进展。     

Plant cell biology 150 years after Matthias Schleiden

Summary Exactly 150 years after the publication of the so-called cell theory the role of the botanist Schleiden has been reconsidered. It is emphasized that the study of plant sexual reproduction systems has contributed considerably to the development of the general cell concept. Recent examples show that 150 years later plant cell biology is flourishing, not least because of the great impact of the increasing use of plant reproductive cells and organs.