Identification Keys,the “Natural Method,” and the Development of Plant Identification Manuals

The origins of field guides and other plant identification manuals have been poorly understood until now because little attention has been paid to 18th century botanical identification guides. Identification manuals came to have the format we continue to use today when botanical instructors in post-Revolutionary France combined identification keys (step-wise analyses focusing on distinctions between plants) with the “natural method” (clustering of similar plants, allowing for identification by gestalt) and alphabetical indexes. Botanical works featuring multiple but linked techniques to enable plant identification became very popular in France by the first decade of the 19th century. British botanists, however, continued to use Linnaeus’s sexual system almost exclusively for another two decades. Their reluctance to use other methods or systems of classification can be attributed to a culture suspicious of innovation, anti-French sentiment and the association of all things Linnaean with English national pride, fostered in particular by the President of the Linnean Society of London, Sir James Edward Smith. The British aversion to using multiple plant identification technologies in one text also helps explain why it took so long for English botanists to adopt the natural method, even after several Englishmen had tried to introduce it to their country. Historians of ornithology emphasize that the popularity of ornithological guides in the 19th and 20th centuries stems from their illustrations, illustrations made possible by printing technologies that improved illustration quality and reduced costs. Though illustrations are the most obvious features of late 19th century and 20th century guides, the organizational principles that make them functional as identification devices come from techniques developed in botanical works in the 18th century.     

Humicolous buthoid scorpions: a new genus and species from French Guiana

A new genus and species of humicolous buthid scorpion are described on the basis of a single specimen collected in French Guyana. New considerations on the taxonomy and morphology of some micro-buthoid humicolous scorpions are proposed, mainly based on the study by scanning electron microscopy of the peg-shaped sensillae of the pectines.     

Before Darwin: Transformist Concepts in European Natural History

Lack of consideration of the complex European scientific scene from the late 18th century to the mid-decades of the 19th century has produced partial and often biased reconstructions of priorities, worries, implicit and explicit philosophical and at times political agendas characterizing the early debates on species. It is the purpose of this paper firstly to critically assess some significant attempts at broadening the historiographic horizon concerning the immediate context to Darwins intellectual enterprise, and to devote the second part to arguing that a multi-faceted European debate on the transformation of life forms had already occurred in Europe around 1800. Of this debate, contrary to long cherished views, Lamarcks was only one voice, amongst many. Naturalists active in different national contexts elaborated solutions and proposed doctrines that shared several viewpoints, yet clearly stemmed from a variety of disciplinary traditions and problematic contexts.     

The genus Cynara L. (Asteraceae-Cardueae)

WIKLUND, A., 1992. The genus Cynara L. (Asteraceae-Cardueae). This study includes a taxonomic revision of the genus Cynara. Eight species and four subspecies are recognized, viz. C. algarbiensis, C. auranitica, C. baetica including subsp. baetica and subsp. maroccana (formerly known as C. hystrix), C. cardunculus including subsp. cardunculus and subsp. flavescens, C. cornigera, C. cyrenaica, C. humilis (formerly sometimes in the genus Bourgaea) and C. syriaca. The cultivated artichoke (formerly C. scolymus) and cardoon are both included in C. cardunculus. One species, C. tournefortii , is excluded from Cynara. A cladistic study of the genus is also undertaken and its morphology, anatomy and phytogeography are discussed.     

Caractérisation d'une Mosaïque Forestière et de sa Dynamique en Forêt Tropicale Humide Sempervirente1

Using a 0.78 ha transect in an undisturbed forest in French Guiana, we sought a typology of forest mosaic units (5 × 5 m quadrats) based on diameter distribution with three main classes of trees ≥5 cm DBH. We identified nine basic structural types corresponding to potential stages of a sequence of development from colonization of gaps to filling of the vertical space among three layers. Two enumerations made over a 10-year interval (1981 and 1991), enabled a transition matrix to be estimated. This summarizes movement between structural types over the period and enables ideas on dynamics to be discussed.     

Using a historical map as a baseline in a land-cover change study of northeast Tanzania

Vegetation data in an early 20th century map from northern Tanzania are presented and discussed for its potential of expanding the analytical time-frame in studies of land-use and land-cover change. The starting point is that much research on land-use and land-cover change suffers from a time-frame bias, caused by limitations in remote sensing data. At the same time, the use of historical maps as a complementary data-set is rather insignificant. Can information in historical maps be used to extend the baseline in land-use and land-cover change studies? The historical context of the vegetation data is evaluated, and as an illustration of its potential for interdisciplinary research on land-cover and ecosystems change, a section of the map is juxtaposed with a recent pollen record specifically addressing the impact of a 'large infrequent disturbance' (LID) event at the end of the 19th century. It is concluded that the vegetation data in the map are not likely to be reflecting an extreme situation due to the LID event. Finally, the historical vegetation data were visually compared with a national 1995 land-cover data set, illustrating the possibility of using the map data as a baseline in land-cover change studies.