Heritage of the Romantic Philosophy in Post-Linnaean Botany Reichenbach’s Reception of Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants as a Methodological and Philosophical Framework

This paper demonstrates the importance of the reception and development of Goethe’s metamorphosis of plants as a methodological and philosophical framework in the history of botanical theories. It proposes a focus on the textbooks written by the German botanist Ludwig Reichenbach and his first attempt to use Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis of plants as fundamental to his natural system of plants published under the title ‘Botany for Women’, in German Botanik für Damen (1828). In this book, Reichenbach paid particular attention to Goethe’s sensitive views on the essence of nature; he regarded Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis in the plant kingdom as an ideal model to interpret connections of natural phenomena, in particular as a conceptual frame for a natural system. Furthermore, he aimed to develop the philosophical statement of the metamorphosis, in which he called for nature-philosophical conceptions in order to materialize his representation of plant “affinities,” and of a kind of “ontogeny” of the whole plant kingdom. This paper demonstrates that, between speculative views and empirical attempts, the extent to which Reichenbach actually belonged to a new “school” of thought, which left its mark on the history and philosophy of botany.     

Caspar Bauhin (1560-1624)

The paper describes the life and scientific work of Caspar Bauhin, whose 425th anniversary of his birth is in 1985. He is well-known in anatomy and botany and some species of plants are called after him. In anatomy his name is linked with the ileocaecal valve, though he apparently did not discover it. Especially Bauhin was engaged in improvement of anatomical and botanical nomenclature.     

The correspondence of Thomas Dale (1700-1750): Botany in the transatlantic Republic of Letters

This paper seeks to provide a full account of the life and career of Dr. Thomas Dale (1700-1750), with particular reference to his botanical works and correspondence. Born in Hoxton, London, Dale studied medicine at Leiden and engaged fully in the social, literary and epistolary network in which botany was practised in eighteenth-century England. In 1730, however, Dale relocated to the British colonial port of Charles Town, South Carolina. Here he continued to engage in a transatlantic network of botanical exchange and discussion, corresponding on equal and reciprocal terms with his former colleagues in England. Where Dale differs from naturalists in South Carolina before him is that his motives for pursuing botany and for corresponding with English naturalists were located firmly in the New World. Such a conclusion forms a valuable, albeit small contribution to models for the development of national scientific cultures in the imperial world. Similarly, Dale's pursuit of botanical information in South Carolina provides a small amount of material with which to illustrate currently fashionable models for the mediated exchange and circulation of scientific knowledge.     

“Plants that Remind Me of Home”: Collecting,Plant Geography,and a Forgotten Expedition in the Darwinian Revolution

In 1859, Harvard botanist Asa Gray (1810–1888) published an essay of what he called “the abstract of Japan botany.” In it, he applied Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory to explain why strong similarities could be found between the flora of Japan and that of eastern North America, which provoked his famous debate with Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) and initiated Gray’s efforts to secure a place for Darwinian biology in the American sciences. Notably, although the Gray–Agassiz debate has become one of the most thoroughly studied scientific debates, historians of science remain unable to answer one critical question: How was Gray able to acquire specimens from Japan? Making use of previously unknown archival materials, this article scrutinizes the institutional, instrumental, financial, and military settings that enabled Gray’s collector, Charles Wright (1811–1885), to travel to Japan, as well as examine Wright’s collecting practices in Japan. I argue that it is necessary to examine Gray’s diagnosis of Japan’s flora and the subsequent debate about it from the viewpoint of field sciences. The field-centered approach not only unveils an array of historical significances that have been overshadowed by the analytical framework of the Darwinian revolution and the reception of Darwinism, but also places a seemingly domestic incident in a transnational context.     

Shakespeares Pflanzenwelt

Shakespearean Botany Was William Shakespeare (1564–1616) a botanist, too? Undoubtedly not, but he had a keen knowledge of plants, their habitats, their use, and their metaphorical meanings. About 120 different species are mentioned. To become conceived by his audience, this must have had a comparable botanical background. The text deals with the varíous apsects of the use of plants by the “Bard” as elements of his texts and their performance, and his possible sources.     

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。     

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.     

From birds to hydroids: Charles Cleveland Nutting (1858–1927) of the University of Iowa,USA

Charles Cleveland Nutting (1858–1927) began his academic career at the University of Iowa, and at the Natural History Museum of the university, in 1886. A naturalist with a bent for ornithology, he became interested in cnidarians, and especially hydroids and alcyonarians, as an outcome of expeditions to the Bahamas in 1888 and 1893. Most noteworthy among his works on Cnidaria were three classic volumes on American hydroids, dealing respectively with Plumulariidae (1900), Sertulariidae (1904), and Campanulariidae and Bonneviellidae (1915). Other papers dealt with hydroids from Britain, Alaska and Puget Sound, Woods Hole and vicinity, Hawaii, and the Philippine region. He founded two new families, seven new genera, and 175 new species of Hydrozoa, ranking him among the top three authors of species names in the group. Nutting also described 206 new nominal species of Alcyonaria. Important among his works on alcyonarians were monographs on Indonesian material from the Siboga expedition, and on ’Albatross’ collections from Hawaii, Japan, and elsewhere in the northwest Pacific. While birds and later hydroids were Nutting’s primary research interests, much of his 41-year professional career was devoted to academic duties at the University of Iowa and to advancement of its Natural History Museum. As museum Director, he significantly expanded the collections, organized exhibits and public programs, and petitioned for satisfactory facilities and funding. Under his leadership, in whole or in part, expeditions to collect specimens for research, teaching, and exhibition were carried out to the Bay of Fundy (1890), Manitoba (1891), the Bahamas and vicinity (1893), Barbados and Antigua (1918), and Fiji and New Zealand (1922). In tribute to Nutting and his contributions to biology, one genus and more than 30 species are named in his honor.     

Lacepède’s Syncretic Contribution to the Debates on Natural History in France Around 1800

Lacepède was a key figure in the French intellectual world from the Old Regime to the Restoration, sinc e he was not only a scientist, but also a musician, a writer, and a politician. His brilliant career is a good example of the progress of the social status of scientists in France around 1800. In the life sciences, he was considered the heir to Buffon and continued the latter’s Histoire naturelle, but he also borrowed ideas from anti-Buffonian (e.g. Linnaean) scientists. He broached many important subjects such as the nature of man, the classification of animals, the concept of species, and the history of the Earth. All these topics led to tensions in the French sciences, but Lacepède dealt with them in a consensual, indeed even ambiguous way. For example, he held transformist views, but his concept of evolution was far less precise and daring than Lamarck’s contemporaneous attempts. His somewhat confused eclecticism allowed him to be accepted by opposing camps of the French scientific community at that time and makes his case interesting for historians, since the opinions of such an opportunistic figure can illuminate the figure of the French intellectual better than more original works could do. In turn, Lacepède’s important social and scientific position gave his views a significant visibility. In this sense, his contributions probably exerted an influence, in particular with regard to the emergence of transformist theories.     

Aboriginal overkill overstated

In this article I critique Charles Kay’s aboriginal overkill hypothesis, which states that Native Americans numbered 100 million or more in precolumbian North America, extensively humanized the landscape, and suppressed wildlife numbers, thus allowing wildlife browse to proliferate. By examining Kay’s source use and pertinent information, I find that he makes four kinds of significant mistakes: exaggerations, failure to provide necessary data, errors of omission, and errors of logic. Through examples I illustrate that Kay’s errors compromise his hypothesis. Kay uses Yellowstone National Park as his primary example of such a humanized area; in contrast, I suggest it is a relatively pristine area.     

Sources for Imanishi Kinji’s views of sociality and evolutionary outcomes

Prior to the contribution of genetics or the modern evolutionary synthesis (MES) to natural selection theory, social ecologists searched for factors in addition to natural selection that could influence species change. The idea that sociality, not just biology, was important in determining evolutionary outcomes was prevalent in research in social ecology in the 1920s and 1930s. The influence of ‘tradition’ (or the transmission of learned behaviours between generations) and the view that animals are active in selecting their own environments, rather than passive organisms acted upon by chance, were given as much attention as natural selection theory in European ecology, while animal aggregation and cooperation studies were pursued in America. Imanishi Kinji’s personal library and his scientific notes and papers reveal that he was well aware of this literature and had been profoundly influenced by these earlier viewpoints prior to writing his view of nature in his first book, Seibutsu no Sekai (The World of Living Things, 1941). Evidence is presented to show that he developed his theories based partly on early western debates in social ecology while finding inspiration and a way to express his views in the writings of philosopher Nishida Kitarō and, perhaps, General J C Smuts. One of Imanishi’s lasting contributions is in the demonstrated results of over 40 years of subsequent ecological and ethological research by Imanishi and those trained by him that maintained the broader viewpoints on evolution that had been dropped from the western corpus of research by the 1950s. The current attempt to again get beyond natural selection theory is reflected in debates surrounding genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation, the biology of ‘traditions’ and the idea of ‘culture’ in animal societies. Imanishi Kinji is the Japanese name order, with family name first. Other Japanese names in the text are also written with family name first. A modified version of this paper appeared in Japanese in Seibutsu Kagaku, Vol. 57 No. 3, April 2006, pp 142–149.     

Of Mice and Men: Evolution and the Socialist Utopia. William Morris,H.G. Wells,and George Bernard Shaw

During the British socialist revival of the 1880s competing theories of evolution were central to disagreements about strategy for social change. In News from Nowhere (1891), William Morris had portrayed socialism as the result of Lamarckian processes, and imagined a non-Malthusian future. H.G. Wells, an enthusiastic admirer of Morris in the early days of the movement, became disillusioned as a result of the Malthusianism he learnt from Huxley and his subsequent rejection of Lamarckism in light of Weismann’s experiments on mice. This brought him into conflict with his fellow Fabian, George Bernard Shaw, who rejected neo-Darwinism in favour of a Lamarckian conception of change he called “creative evolution.”     

Charles Darwin’s <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Beagle</Emphasis> Voyage,Fossil Vertebrate Succession,and “The Gradual Birth &; Death of Species”

The prevailing view among historians of science holds that Charles Darwin became a convinced transmutationist only in the early spring of 1837, after his Beagle collections had been examined by expert British naturalists. With respect to the fossil vertebrate evidence, some historians believe that Darwin was incapable of seeing or understanding the transmutationist implications of his specimens without the help of Richard Owen. There is ample evidence, however, that he clearly recognized the similarities between several of the fossil vertebrates he collected and some of the extant fauna of South America before he returned to Britain. These comparisons, recorded in his correspondence, his diary and his notebooks during the voyage, were instances of a phenomenon that he later called the “law of the succession of types.” Moreover, on the Beagle, he was following a geological research agenda outlined in the second volume of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which implies that paleontological data alone could provide an insight into the laws which govern the appearance of new species. Since Darwin claims in On the Origin of Species that fossil vertebrate succession was one of the key lines of evidence that led him to question the fixity of species, it seems certain that he was seriously contemplating transmutation during the Beagle voyage. If so, historians of science need to reconsider both the role of Britain’s expert naturalists and the importance of the fossil vertebrate evidence in the development of Darwin’s ideas on transmutation.     

Rupert C. Barneby and Pugillus Astragalorum

Rupert C. Barneby, his monumental contributions to the taxonomy ofAstragalus and his place among American botanists, is discussed. His twenty contributions in the seriesPugillus Astragalorum spanned fifteen years of his botanical development from an interested naturalist to an accomplished taxonomist in this extremely species-rich genus. Barneby’s work onAstragalus culminated in the 1188 pages of theAtlas of North American Astragalus, which treated of 552 taxa and was published in 1964.     

From Charles Darwin's botanical country-house studies to modern plant biology

As a student of theology at Cambridge University, Charles Darwin (1809–1882) attended the lectures of the botanist John S. Henslow (1796–1861). This instruction provided the basis for his life-long interest in plants as well as the species question. This was a major reason why in his book On the Origin of Species , which was published 150 years ago, Darwin explained his metaphorical phrase 'struggle for life' with respect to animals and plants. In this article, we review Darwin's botanical work with reference to the following topics: the struggle for existence in the vegetable kingdom with respect to the phytochrome-mediated shade avoidance response; the biology of flowers and Darwin's plant–insect co-evolution hypothesis; climbing plants and the discovery of action potentials; the power of movement in plants and Darwin's conflict with the German plant physiologist Julius Sachs; and light perception by growing grass coleoptiles with reference to the phototropins. Finally, we describe the establishment of the scientific discipline of Plant Biology that took place in the USA 80 years ago, and define this area of research with respect to Darwin's work on botany and the physiology of higher plants.     

Curiosity, Recruitment, and Chaos: A Tribute to Bill Ricker’s Inquiring Mind

Synopsis Through three versions of a handbook on computations for biological statistics of fish populations, W.E. “Bill” Ricker played a pivotal role in founding the field of quantitative fishery science. His interests, however, extended far beyond the confines of quantifiable events to a deep appreciation for the natural world. In this article, I trace his development of fishery models from the 1940s to the 1970s, using examples that illustrate his approach to statistics and biological systems analysis. I describe changes in technology and statistics that have made it possible to extend his research in new directions, although his approach still lies at the core of all modern fishery models. His gentle, inquiring spirit persisted long after his retirement in 1973, as I illustrate from personal experiences with him during the 1990s.