journal of botanic gardens conservation international 4_1.pdf · taxonomy and plant conservation...

Taxonomy andplant conservation

the tercentenary of thebirth of Carl Linnaeus

(1707-1778)

Special 2007 anniversary issue

BGjournalJournal of Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Volume 4 • Number 1 • January 2007

20YEARS

1987-2007

Contents

0204081216

21

2430

3132

Editors: Etelka Leadlay and Sara Oldfield

Co-editors: Suzanne Sharrock and Fiona Wild

Cover Photo: Sarracenia flava L. a species describedby Linnaeus in Species Plantarum 1:510 (1753) incultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew(Photo: BGCI)

Design: John Morgan, SeascapeE-mail: [email protected]

Submissions for the next issue should reach the editorbefore 20th March, 2007. The theme of this issue willbe climate change. We would welcome contributions.Please send text on diskette or via e-mail, as well as ahard copy. Please send photographs as original slidesor prints unless scanned to a very high resolution (300pixels/inch and 100mm in width); digital images need tobe of a high resolution for printing. If you would likefurther information, please request Notes for authors.

BGjournal is published by Botanic Gardens ConservationInternational (BGCI). It is published twice a year and issent to all BGCI members. Membership is open to allinterested individuals, institutions and organisations thatsupport the aims of BGCI (see page 32 for Membershipapplication form).

Further details available from:• Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Descanso

House, 199 Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3BW UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5953, Fax: +44 (0)20 8332 5956 E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.org

• BGCI-Russia, c/o Main Botanical Gardens, Botanicheskaya st., 4, Moscow 127276, Russia. Tel: +7 (095) 219 6160 / 5377, Fax: +7 (095) 218 0525, E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.ru

• BGCI (U.S.) Inc., c/o Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11225-1099, U.S.A. Tel: +1 718 623 7200, Fax: +1 718 857 2430, E-mail: [email protected] www.bgci.org/us

• BGCI-Netherlands, c/o Utrecht University Botanic Gardens, P.O. Box 80162, NL-3508 TD, Netherlands. Tel: +31 30 253 2876, Fax: +31 30 253 5177, E-mail: [email protected], www.bi.uu.nl/botgard

• BGCI-Canarias, c/o Jardín Botánico Canario Viera yClavijo, Apartado de Correos 14, Tafira Alta 35017, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Spain. Tel: +34 928 21 95 80/82/83, Fax: +34 928 21 95 81, E-mail: [email protected]

• BGCI – China and South East Asia, c/o Registry,Singapore Botanic Gardens, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore259569. E-mail: Bian.Tan @bgci.org,[email protected], www.bgci.org/china

• BGCI-Colombia , c/o Jardín Botánico de Bogotá, Jose Celestino Mutis, Av. No. 61-13 – A.A. 59887, Santa Fe de Bogotá, D.C., Colombia. Tel: +57 630 0949, Fax: +57 630 5075, E-mail: [email protected],www.humboldt.org.co/jardinesdecolombia/html/la_red.htm

• BGCI-Deutschland, c/o Botanischer Gärten der Universität Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 171, 53115 Bonn, Germany. Tel: +49 2 2873 9055, Fax: +49 2 28731690, E-mail: [email protected]

BGCI is a worldwide membership organization establishedin 1987. Its mission is to build a global network for plantconservation. BGCI is an independent organizationregistered in the United Kingdom as a charity (Charity RegNo 1098834) and a company limited by guarantee, No4673175. BGCI is a tax-exempt (501(c)(3) non-profitorganization in the USA and in Russia.

Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarilyreflect the views of the Boards or staff of BGCI or of itsmembers

BGjournal replaces BGCNews and is published twice ayear. BGjournal has been given a new name as the newssection of BGCNews and Roots (Botanic GardensConservation International Education Review) is nowcontained in Cuttings which is published quarterly.There are 31 issues of BGCNews published twice yearlyfrom 1987-2003.

Editorial

The legacy of Linnaeus

Linnaean names and their types: a permanent reference point

Taxonomy and plant conservation

Botanical buffet – the importance of living collections for plantsystematics

Taxonomy is the tool that measures plant diversity – and ourlevel of knowledge

The Catalogue of Life: indexing the world’s species

Book notices and taxonomic resources

Linnaean Celebrations 2007

Registration Form for the International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation

How to join Botanic Gardens Conservation International

BGjournal • Vol 4 (1) 01

21 2416

04

08 12

The diversity of plant species is afascination to all botanists, aninspiration to gardeners and, althoughgenerally taken for granted, providesthe basis for all life on earth. Speciesdiversity represents millions of years ofevolution and is the most importantvisible expression of biodiversity, givingcharacter to ecosystems and shape togenetic diversity. Understanding andrecording plant diversity depends onnaming species. In this issue ofBGjournal we mark the 300thanniversary of Linnaeus, the founder of modern species nomenclature andvariously described as “the Prince ofFlowers” or “the Father of Botany”.

Botanic gardens have an extremelyimportant role to play in studying,naming, cataloguing and displaying plantdiversity. All these roles are clearlyimportant as a basis for plantconservation. As pointed out by TimEntwisle in this issue, having a focussedcollections policy is a basic requirementfor each botanic garden to manage itsplant resources to maximum effect.Managing information on plants in thecollections is also an importantrequirement recognized by botanicgardens around the world. Collectionpolicies and management of collectionsdepend on taxonomy and plantnomenclature, the often invisiblesciences that determine the nature of botanic gardens.

In the wider scheme of things, plantspecies are being lost both literally withthe increasing pace of extinctions and

within the conservation debate. The ecosystem approach dominatesdiscussion of biodiversity conservationwhereas mammals and birds are usedas indicators of biodiversity status andhealth. The Convention on BiologicalDiversity (CBD) Global Strategy forPlant Conservation (GSPC) wasdeveloped to address both the relativeinvisibility of plants in internationalconservation fora and, more critically,the actual loss of plant species.

The GSPC is currently the subject ofan in-depth review and the progresstowards meeting its ambitious targetswill be highlighted within CBD over thenext two years. The contribution thatbotanic gardens are making to theGSPC is remarkable, individually andcollectively through BGCI and theGlobal Partnership for PlantConservation. Target 1 of the GSPC, ashighlighted by Vernon Heywood, KarenWilson and Frank Bisby in this issue,calls for A widely accessible workinglist of known plant species, as a steptowards a complete world flora. Thereis a good likelihood of this target beingmet and this achievement in itself willvalidate the importance of the GSPC.Linnaeus described and cataloguedaround 9,000 plant species, laying thebasis for a global working list of known

plant species. He believed that thisrepresented roughly half the world’sflora. Now we know that closer to300,000 vascular plant species exist.

Target 2 of the GSPC depends on theclassification and naming of plants. It calls for A preliminary assessment ofthe conservation status of all knownplant species, at national, regional andinternational levels. At present,progress towards meeting Target 2 is slow at an international level, notbecause of the lack of data butbecause of lack of organization of theinformation on conservation status.This is an issue of concern, resulting inthe invisibility of plants in globalspecies assessments and conservationplanning. Botanic gardens, however,are playing a major role in assessingthe conservation status of plantspecies and recording this information,for example in the TROPICOSdatabase maintained by MissouriBotanical Garden and the taxonomicpublications produced by the RoyalBotanic Gardens, Kew.

Targets 1 and 2 underpin the other 16 targets of the GSPC and arefundamentally important for botanicgardens to do their work. BGCI istaking a lead role in facilitating Targets

BGjournal • Vol 4 (1)02

Editorial

Right: Dracaena

draco is under

threat in the

wild (IUCN

Category:

Vulnerable). The

Botanic Garden

‘Viera y Clavijo’,

Las Palmas,

Spain has

undertaken a

successful

programme to

restore the

island’s last

laurel forests

and reintroduce

the Dragon Tree

to the wild.

(Photo: BGCI)

8 and 14 of the GSPC, reflecting thekey responsibilities of botanic gardensin ex situ plant conservation andeducation. Target 8 calls for 60 per centof threatened plant species inaccessible ex situ collections, preferablyin the country of origin, and 10 per centof them included in recovery andrestoration programmes. A major toolfor monitoring Target 8 at a global levelis the BGCI PlantSearch database. The development of this onlinedatabase represents an ambitiousattempt to record the diversity of plantspecies in cultivation in botanic gardensand link this to conservation data. At

present there are over 150,000 taxarecorded in PlantSearch provided by637 gardens, of which over 11,000species are recorded as globallythreatened.

Managing the PlantSearch database isa major challenge for BGCI and I wouldlike to begin a dialogue about thepriorities for developing the databaseas a conservation planning tool for allbotanic gardens. A few years ago, Dr James Cullen reviewed the datamaintained by BGCI, organized theplant names according to DickBrummitt’s Vascular Plants: Families

and Genera of 1992 and eliminatedmisspellings, synonyms and misplacednames. Currently BGCI screens allplant names in PlantSearch against theInternational Plant Names Index (IPNI)(www.ipni.org) as a means ofeliminating invalidly published names.Looking ahead, do we need to promotea standard naming system for gardens,to allow for easy collaboration bothnationally and internationally? Is thereany value in recording cultivars in thedatabase? How do we give dueprominence to plants of particularvalue, such as medicinal species andcrop wild relatives? How do weaddress the lack of currently compiledinformation on globally threatenedplants within the IUCN Red List? Dowe need to continue the policy of notrevealing the location of plant speciesin collections? Your views on the utilityof PlantSearch and its futuredevelopment will be extremelyvaluable.

There will be good opportunities todiscuss the links between planttaxonomy, nomenclature, conservationevaluations and conservation actionsat the 3rd Global Botanic GardensCongress in Wuhan in April this year.During the Congress we will becelebrating 20 years of BGCI. Variousother BGCI anniversary events areplanned throughout the year, startingwith a public lecture by WangariMaatthai, the Nobel Prize winner, inLondon on 8 February. Another event,organised jointly by BGCI, IUCN andArtDatabanken will take place inUppsala in Sweden – an internationalmeeting on 3 May entitled Secrets ofSpecies. This links to the LinnaeanTercentenary celebrations in Swedenand will be used to promote thefundamental importance of plantconservation. Throughout 2007 therewill of course be events around theworld to celebrate the 300thanniversary of Linnaeus. A summary ofthese is given on page 31. One of thebest memorials to Linnaeus is thecommitment of botanic gardens toclassifying, naming and conservingplants, so that none of the plantspecies known to Linnaeus orsubsequently described are needlesslylost.

Sara Oldfield


Left: Dracaena

draco (L.) L.

was named by

Linnaeus from a

description and

illustration

published by

Clusius in 1601.

Now considered

Vulnerable in

the wild, it is

one of the most

commonly

cultivated,

globally

threatened plant

species, as

recorded in the

PlantSearch

database.

(© Natural

History

Museum,

London (NHM))

Där man får tänka och skriva vad manwill, där blomstra studier. Där religionenär fri blomstrar landet. Där teologinregerar fungerar intet.

Where there is freedom of speech,science prospers. Where there isreligious freedom, the country prospers.In a theocracy nothing prospers

(C. Linnaeus, Diaeta naturalis [1733]129, A. Uggla 1958).

Some of what Linnaeus wrote in the18th century during a long, productivelife may seem alien, or even bizarre, tothe modern mind. Did he really believethat swallows hibernate on the bottomof lakes, or that God created, once andfor all, immutable species in a singleact? At other times he feels verymodern, for example, when hecomments on superstition, diet, ordiscusses in detail the behaviour of aninsect. Our Swedish national hero hassuffered disparate judgments: theromantic picture of the Flower Prince

unveiling the secrets of Flora whilesurrounded by hordes of admiringpupils seems hard to reconcile with theself-sufficient book keeper, jealouslyguarding his territory while meticulouslypigeonholing each and every dryspecimen to its appropriate boxaccording to the Methodus (Linnaeus,1736).

Both pictures are true. Linnaeus was adirect and spontaneous person,normally not hampered by protocol. He made friends but also enemies; hisdisciples adored and loved him butsome of his colleagues in science didnot. But was he really a great scientist?Did he make any theoretical orexperimental breakthrough, like Darwinor Kepler, or did he just compile thingsin a new framework? J. Sachs (1875)even argued that Linnaeus had delayedthe progress of botany. He was perhapsnot a profound theoretician; much (butnot all) of his thoughts on ecology,economics, metaphysics or moralswere common ideas at the time, and hecould occasionally contradict himself.However, genius can take differentforms.

Nomina si nescis, perit etcognitio rerumWithout names, no knowledge

It is indisputable that Linnaeus was of immense importance for thedevelopment and popularization ofbotany. Although botanicalterminology has developed since hisFundamenta Botanica (1736) and

Philosophia Botanica (1751), it stillowes its clarity and precision toLinnaeus. His precise and logicaldescriptions of taxa are more similar topresent-day format than to thoseimmediately preceding him. The SexualSystem enabled new and old genera tobe classified and recorded in a simpleand straightforward manner – he didbring order to a former chaos. Thebinomial system for naming species ismore ingenious than Linnaeus himselfunderstood at the time, and – it is myfirm conviction – will survive as long astaxonomy. His encyclopaedic projectSpecies Plantarum (1753) is a fantasticachievement based on anencyclopaedic knowledge (containingmany mistakes, of course, like allencyclopaedias). Numerous are hiscontributions based on observation inthe field and in the botanic garden on,for example, ecology, aetiology,phenology and ethnobotany – Omniammirare, etiam tritissima (wherever youlook, there is something worthy of athesis). And, of course, we must thankhim for “the Swedish thermometer”,reversing Celsius’ temperature scale,otherwise we would have had a humanbody temperature of 63 degrees.

Deus creavit, LinnaeusdisposuitGod created, Linnaeus classified

But, enough of praise. What about hisclassification of plants? It has beendisproved, hasn’t it? It was newspaperheadlines some years ago! As Linnaeuswas aware, the Sexual System was

BGCI • 2007 • BGjournal • Vol 4 (1) • 04-0704

The legacy of Linnaeus

Author: Magnus Lidén

Background:

The original

drawing for

Linnaeus’

Garden.

Below:

Linnaeus’

summer house

at Hammarby, in

the countryside

southeast of

Uppsala, is one

of the best

preserved 18th-

century houses

in Sweden and

has hardly

changed since

Linnaeus’ time.

completely arbitrary. There are noobservations that could disprove orcorroborate it. It cannot possibly be“wrong”. However, the lower ranks,genera and species, were treated byLinnaeus (as by us today) as naturaltaxa, i.e. as individual entities with anexistence independent of ourobservation. This clash between twoprinciples led to inconsistencies, likethe placement of, for example, aspecies with three stamens (Galiumtriandrum) in Class Tetrandria.Linnaeus’ sense for naturalness simplymade him unable to divorce thisspecies from its 4-staminate relativesin the rest of Galium.

The truth is, as all botanists knowwhen not making propaganda, that theSexual System was already becomingobsolete in the early 19th century –certainly to Linnaeus’ delight, had hestill been alive. Commonly, the startingpoint for the quest towards a naturalsystem is taken to be GeneraPlantarum by Antoine Laurent deJussieu (1789). That is to grosslyunderestimate the attempt made byLinnaeus. He considered the search fora natural system an importantundertaking, and in Systema Naturae(1758) he lists 58 Ordines Naturales inthe Plant Kingdom. A majority of thesewe still recognize today, as families,subfamilies or orders. The treatment byde Jussieu is much more elaborate (itis a complete classification down tothe level of genus), but its theoreticalfoundation is not stronger. It isinteresting to note that de Jussieuactually did not believe his own systemto be “true”. He considered the patternof life to form a continuum, whichcould not possibly be reflectedby a hierarchicalsystem of groupswithin groups.

During the18thcentury, acontinuum-view of theorder of nature waswidespread – fromBuffon to de Jussieuand Lamarck – anddid not completely giveway to the “Linnaean”paradigm of aninclusive hierarchy untilA. P. de Candolle.

Apart from that, the search for thenatural system has been a story ofcontinuous improvement from the timeof Linnaeus until today, without anydrastic paradigmatic shifts as to howthe general pattern of plant biodiversityis depicted. However, we have not onlyperfected our picture of the naturalsystem; since Darwin we also believewe understand its background: taxaare explained by common ancestry.

It is less well known that Linnaeus alsothought about the reason for theoccurrence of natural taxa beyond thesimple “God’s plan”. He came up withthe modern explanation that each ofhis Ordines Naturales had a singleorigin, thus explaining the whole PlantKingdom with only 58 creations. These58 originally created plants crossedwith each other to form the natural

genera, which inturn crossed

with eachother toform thespecies.The

crossingsdid not result inintermediatesand chaos,because thelineages were

held togetherby the femaleseed-producinginner tissue,the medulla,

which he

considered the most important inreproduction, the male part, the bark(which produced the stamens), onlyadding superficial variation. The idea isconsistent with his view of anincreasing land mass that could beextrapolated backwards to a quitesmall and comprehensible Eden whereall animals and plants were withinreasonable reach and present in areasonable number when God broughtthem before Adam so he could namethem (1. Moses 2:19). These fantasticspeculations nevertheless give thesame basic explanation for theoccurrence of natural taxa as we dotoday – common ancestry. To be fair, it was not all speculation: Linnaeus hadcorrectly observed that land is rising inthe mid-Swedish coastland with whichhe was familiar, and his finds of marinefossils high above sea level confirmedhis thesis (Skånska resa, 1751). Henoted that they could not be explainedby The Flood.

Characterem non constitueregenusCharacters do not make the genus

Like many icons, Linnaeus has beensubject to (sometimes deliberate)misinterpretation. If you want to makeyour point, it is of course easier if youcan denigrate the Master by turninghim into a straw-man of your ownmaking. For instance, Linnaeus hasbeen portrayed as an Aristotelian or anEssentialist, partly because of his lovefor catchy aphorisms, but perhapsmore because it fits a simplified pictureof science as a steadily progressing


Above: The

Baroque Garden

at Uppsala

Royal Palace

became the new

botanic garden

in 1790. The

Linnaeanum, in

the background,

which dates

back to 1800,

will house

exhibits and an

information

centre during

the Linnaeus

jubilee this year.

Left: What better

crown for the

Prince of

Flowers, than

his own Fumaria

nobilis L.

(now Corydalis

nobilis).

voyage from ignorance tounderstanding. However, traces ofAristotelianism and Essentialismsurvive alongside other world views inpresent day scientific papers as well asin the 18th century, even in the sameindividual.

The truth is that Linnaeus was notoverly concerned about ontologicalquestions; his approach is pragmatic.Consequently, there areinconsistencies in his works. Althoughhe used terms like “essential”, there islittle to suggest that he embraced anEssentialist philosophy. For him thesewords were equivalent to“taxonomically useful” (see, forexample, a brilliant essay by Winsor2006). You could with equaljustification argue that he was anexplicit non-Essentialist; the famousphrase above this paragraph is echoedin the modern idea of “taxa asindividuals”.

Gud skapade världen till enblomstertapet och sattemänniskan däruppå attspatsera, leva och sig förnöja

God made the world a floweringtapestry and put man thereupon tostroll, live and be happy

Linnaeus was a brilliant teacher, as wastestified unanimously by many of hispupils. Much of his teaching was in thefield, and his herbationes took the formof veritable triumphal processions. Hisknown students amount to about 500,many of whom made great careers. No fewer than 74 came from othercountries. The same appealing traits –quick intelligence, pedagogical skill,charm and persuasive abilities –earned him benefactors from the early

years, from Stobaeus in Lund, Celsiusand Rudbeck in Uppsala to Gronovius,Boerhaave, Burman and Clifford inHolland. The rapid spread of hissystem is explained first and foremostby its clarity and utility, but withoutwell-timed promotion, money andauthority provided by senior scientists,its success would have been lesscertain. Linnaeus made these menimmortal in the names of plant genera.What more could anyone ask for?

Nu begynte hela marken fägnasig och le, nu kommer Floraoch sover hos FebusNow the earth begins to thrive andsmile, now Flora comes and sleepswith Phoebus

So starts his Lapland diary. It shows aside of Linnaeus that is very importantfor his status as a national Swedishmonument - his personal and poeticprose, full of love and amazement andyet with remarkable descriptiveeconomy. There are few 18th-centurySwedes who can still be read withpleasure, but Linnaeus can.Consequently, his travelogues andother works in Swedish are time andagain printed in new editions and readby new generations. Unfortunately, fewhave been translated into otherlanguages.

In Latin, his language is personal andefficient, not only in the telegrammaticstaccato of works such as SpeciesPlantarum. He tells us that the idealscientific prose (such as his own)should have a clear style with shortand precise words and withouttautology, and that such writing iseasier and more entertaining to readthan one that is needlesslyembroidered. This recommendation still holds.


Right: Fritillaria

meleagris was

naturalised in the

garden before

Linnaeus' time.

Here it is

naturalised with

a traditional

Swedish

Gärdesgård (a

fence made from

thin raw spruce

(Picea abies)

stems cut into

halves and tied

together with

tiny spruce-

stems or spruce-

roots).

Right: Linnaeus’

house in

Linnaeus’

Garden was

turned into a

museum in

1937. In the

foreground

Corydalis

nobilis still

thrives. It was

introduced in

1765 and

Linnaeus

predicted it

would have a

grand future as

an ornamental.

The Linnaeus

Garden had

been abandoned

by the end of

the 18th century

but was

restored in

1920.

Homo, nosce te ipseHomo, know thyself

Linnaeus is the authority for Homosapiens. In Systema Naturae Linnaeus“describes” Homo sapiens with theabove profound phrase, taken from theinscription on the Delphi temple toApollo (Gr: gnothi seauton) - whichgives food for thought for the spirituallyinclined, not least today with the revivalof the original gnostic Christianity.Linnaeus himself was, as is wellknown, deeply religious and rarelymissed a sermon if he could avoid it.He knew the Old Testament and theApocrypha well, and frequently alludedto them in his writings. References tothe Gospels or to Jesus are wanting.He thinks that we have been put onEarth to praise the blessed creation ofthe Lord, and this is our Paradise. Hedid not seem to entertain the idea of alife after death. Linnaeus’ God is notonly the Creator, he is also theNemesis, and it follows that sinners arepunished in this life; innocue vivito –numen adest (lead a righteous life –God is everywhere). Much of hisreligious and ethical speculations weremade available only long after hisdeath, when a collection of notes to hisson was published as “NemesisDivina”. Here we are able to see thedark aspects of Linnaeus, and it refutesthe criticism that he was uninterestedin the social and political arena.

But did he “know” himself? As W. T.Stearn points out (1971), Linnaeuswrote his autobiography five times, andwas obviously the human being hehimself had studied most closely, andso is the natural choice of typespecimen for the species name Homosapiens. An additional guideline for thechoice of Linnaean types is that thechosen element should conform to the original description accompanyingthe name.

Botanic gardens andLinnaeus2007

Hortus Upsaliensis (now Linnaeus’Garden), laid out in 1655 by OlofRudbeck the Elder, was greatlytransformed and enriched by Linnaeus.It was essential for his teaching, andimportant for his botanical works. Hisdemonstrations in the garden wereextremely popular, and could attract

half the students at the University(which seriously upset enviousprofessors whose students did notattend their lectures). Not only arethere numerous references to “HU” inhis herbarium, books and letters, it isalso indirectly obvious how often heowes his ideas and conclusions toobservations in the garden.

This is no less relevant today. As asystematist, I am grateful to botanicgardens for the opportunity to studymy plants throughout their life cycle,thus gaining knowledge unavailablefrom herbarium specimens or restrictedfield studies. The potential for newdiscoveries based on botanic gardenmaterial in areas unrelated to purebotany – biotechnology, chemistry, andso on – is underexploited. This needsto be stressed to balance the currentsomewhat one-sided message that themain justification for botanic gardens isplant conservation. Sadly (as I considerconservation important), I cannot creditLinnaeus with much insight in the latterfield, although he did emphasise thesignificance of botanic gardens foreducation in a broad sense. However,his naming system has greatlyfacilitated communication betweenbotanists working in botanic gardensall over the world.

It is 300 years since Carl Linnaeus was born “when the cuckoo wasannouncing the imminence ofsummer”. In Sweden, UppsalaUniversity, the Royal Swedish Academyof Sciences and the Swedish LinneanSociety, and others, are collaboratingto highlight Linnaeus2007. Theobjective is to stimulate interest innatural science among the young,where there has been a serious declinein the last decade. The Tercentenaryhas also prompted a general evaluationof Linnaean material. Events,exhibitions, flower shows, tours andfestivities are planned all over Sweden,especially in Uppsala and indeed inseveral other countries.

Information can be sought onwww.uu.se/linne2007/,www.linnaeus.uu.se andwww.botan.uu.se. If you have notmade a pilgrimage to these reveredsites, this is the time to come. I wouldlike to welcome you to Linnaeus’Garden, Linnaeus’ Garden atHammarby and Uppsala BotanicGarden this summer!

References

➡Anonymous. A very long time ago.Genesis.

➡Jussieu, A. L. de, 1789. GeneraPlantarum, secundum ordinesnaturales disposita. Paris.

➡Linnaeus, C. 1733 (1958). Diaetanaturalis. Manuscript compiled by A. H. Uggla, Uppsala.

➡Linnaeus, C. 1736. FundamentaBotanica.

➡Linnaeus, C. 1751. Carl LinnaeiSkånska resa: på höga öfverhetensbefallning förrättad år 1749.Stockholm.

➡Linnaeus, C. 1751 (2003).Philosophia Botanica. Translated byS. Freer. Oxford.

➡Linnaeus, C. 1753. SpeciesPlantarum, Stockholm.

➡Linnaeus, C. 1758. SystemaNaturae, ed. 10, vol. 1. Stockholm.

➡Sachs, J. 1875. Geschichte derBotanik vom 16 Jahrhundert bis1860. München.

➡Stearn, W. T. In Blunt, W. 1971. The Compleat Naturalist. A life ofLinnaeus. London.

➡Winsor, M. P. 2006. Linnaeus’biology was not essentialist. Ann.Missouri Bot. Gard. 93: 2-7.

Magnus LidénE-mail: [email protected] address: Uppsala UniversityBotanical Garden, Villavägen 8, SE-752 36 Uppsala,SwedenTel: +46-18-4712830Fax: +46-18-4712831Internet: http://www.botan.uu.se/


Left: The picture

of the whale

(with young),

above the door

to his bedroom

at Hammarby

has a proverb

which reminds

us of God's

omnipresence

Innocue vivito:

numen adest

(lead a righteous

life - God is

everywhere).

It is essential for anyone studying andworking with living organisms to knowtheir correct scientific names. As PeterRaven of Missouri Botanical Garden (inJarvis, 2007) writes, “Precise names areimportant because all of our food andmost of our medicines come fromplants, either directly or indirectly; theecosystems that they dominate protectour topsoil and regulate ourwatersheds, determine local climate,and absorb greenhouse gases andother pollutants. Moreover, we are justbeginning to understand plants properlyat a molecular and cellular level,applications that demand precise waysof naming and understanding them.”

In day-to-day life, using common orvernacular names to communicateabout organisms can often work wellenough between people who share thesame language, and who are familiarwith the same geographical area.

However, there can be pitfalls. Use ofthe name “bluebell” in the UnitedKingdom can, depending on area, riskconfusing the blue-flowered bulbousplant of deciduous woods(Hyacinthoides non-scripta (L.) Rothm.)with the low-growing bellflower of openground (Campanula rotundifolia L.).Horticulturally interesting groups ofplants, too, provide scope forconfusion, with the vernacular“geranium” referring to a member ofthe genus Pelargonium (not to thecrane’s-bill genus, Geranium), and“veronica” used to indicate speciesbelonging to the genus Hebe (ratherthan the speedwell genus, Veronica).

These problems are only compoundedwhen many different languages areinvolved, over a wide geographicalarea. Hence the immense utility of thebinomial naming system introduced forplants by the Swedish physician CarlLinnaeus (1707-1778) in 1753. Still inuse today, it provides a fundamentalframework for the scientific naming ofplants. Consisting of a genus name(e.g. Ginkgo) and a species name (e.g.biloba) in Latin form, these binomialsare used according to an internationallyagreed set of rules which are laid out inthe International Code of BotanicalNomenclature (ICBN) (McNeill & al.

2006). As McNeill & Turland write in thePreface to the ICBN, “Unambiguousnames for organisms are essential foreffective scientific communication;names can only be unambiguous ifthere are internationally accepted rulesgoverning their formation and use”.

How binomials arose

Before Linnaeus’ introduction ofbinomials, organisms were givendescriptive Latin names, which notonly acted as a tag, but also describedtheir features. These names wereinitially fairly brief, but, as more speciesbecame known, names became longerand more difficult to remember.


Linnaean names and their types: a permanent reference point

Author: Charlie Jarvis

Above:

The type of

Sarracenia flava

L. is a Mark

Catesby

illustration.

(© NHM)

Right:

The type of

Sagittaria

lancifolia L. in

Linnaeus’

herbarium in

London.

(© Linnean

Society of

London (LINN))

For example, what was known asArbutus folio serrato (Arbutus withsaw-toothed leaves) in 1623 hadbecome Arbutus caule erecto, foliisglabris serratis, baccis polyspermis(Arbutus with upright stems, hairless,saw-toothed leaves and many-seededberries) 130 years later. Linnaeus’corresponding binomial (now citedfollowed by an abbreviation of theauthor’s name, in this case “L.”) wasArbutus unedo L. This idea proved sosimple and useful that others started tocoin their own names for species theywere describing for the first time. Bythe 1770s, most biologists hadadopted them and the majority are stillin use today. Linnaeus named morethan 9,000 plants, including mostmajor crop and medicinal plants andmany commercially importantornamentals, as well as numerouscommon tropical species, and most ofthe common wild plants of Europe. Hislandmark work, Species Plantarum(1753), marks the starting point for theuse of these names.

The Type Method

Linnaeus (1751) himself wrote inPhilosophia Botanica, “If you do notknow the names of things, theknowledge of them is lost too”. Today,stability in plant naming is establishedby what is known as the type method –when a new species is identified, adried, pressed specimen of the plant,demonstrating its typical characters, ispreserved and designated as the“type” of the name that is published forit. The type specimen provides apermanent reference point for everyone

and establishes the name’s use. Anyname can be checked against its typespecimen, and if two names are foundto apply to the same species, theearlier of them becomes the correctname to use. Although the type systemdeveloped gradually from the middle ofthe 19th century, it was not formallyadopted in a Code of BotanicalNomenclature until 1930.

The Linnaean Plant Name TypificationProject, based at the Natural HistoryMuseum in London, has been workingto establish type specimensretroactively for the 9,000 plant namesof species (and a small number ofvarieties) coined by Linnaeus, so thatthe names can be correctly used. Whenthe Project was set up in 1981,information on Linnaean typificationswas widely scattered and it was notknown how many names had beentypified. Many choices (typifications)had been published piecemeal over theyears, and in a wide variety ofpublications, so a major part of theProject’s work has involved making ahuge literature search in order to drawthis information together.

Linnaeus and his sources ofinformation

Carl Linnaeus was a bornencyclopaedist in an age that fosteredand encouraged the methodicalcataloguing of everything, from theorganisms that make up the naturalworld to the listing and defining of

words themselves – the 18th centurysaw the publication of the firstdictionaries and encylopaedias. It wasalso a golden age of exploration –when James Cook departed on hisepic voyage around the world in 1768,on board was the young DanielSolander, a favourite pupil of Linnaeus.Inspired by Linnaeus’ teaching, manyof his students (known as the“Apostles”) set off on journeys toAmerica, to Egypt, to India and Japan,collecting plants and seeds to takeback to the great master in Sweden.

Linnaeus’ own travels were moremodest. He knew his native Swedenwell, and lived in the Netherlands forthree years, making short trips toGermany, Paris and England duringthat time. However, wherever he was,he continued to observe and list anddescribe everything he saw, not justplants but also mammals, birds, fishesand minerals, as well as people andtheir habits and customs. He alsoexamined the herbaria of othercollectors, such as the North Americanplants collected by John Clayton andin the possession of Linnaeus’ friend


Left: Linnaeus’

Species

Plantarum (1753)

showing the

account of

Arbutus with the

species names

(Unedo,

acadiensis, alpina

and Uva-ursi)

placed in the

margin.

(© NHM)

Above centre: The

type of Alyssoides

utriculata (L.)

Medik. in Linnaeus’

herbarium.

(© LINN)

Above:

The type of

Desmodium

nudiflorum (L.)

DC. is a specimen

collected by John

Clayton in Virginia.

(© NHM)

Johan Gronovius in Leiden, and theCeylon collections made by PaulHermann 70 years earlier. By 1746Linnaeus had made a start on the workwhich is perhaps his most well-known,Species Plantarum. Then aged 39, hehad been collecting plants andrecording them all his life and hadwritten guides to the floras of Laplandand Sweden as well as books on hisphilosophical approach to botany andaccounts of the plants, native and non-native, to be found on estates such asthe Hartekamp in the Netherlands,home to the keen plantsman GeorgeClifford, which contained such exoticsas the banana.

In other words, when Linnaeusdescribed and classified plants, he wasdrawing on a very wide range ofsources of information, and his notionof what constituted a species could bevery broad, taking in under a singlename what we would regard today as anumber of different species. Becausethe 18th-century Swede did not workaccording to our modern type concept,only very rarely can we be sure that hebased his concept of a particularspecies on a single specimen (a“holotype”). For names other thanthese, it is necessary to choose a type(a “lectotype”) from among thespecimens and illustrations thatLinnaeus used in arriving at hisconcept of the species in question. A good comprehension of his working

methods is essential for anyoneundertaking the task of analysingLinnaean names and designatingtypes.

The literature survey revealed thataround a quarter of all Linnaean nameshad been the subject of typification,but it was necessary to establishwhether these type statements hadbeen validly chosen, and where morethan one type statement existed, whichone should take priority. Before beingaccepted, each typification statementwas carefully assessed. It wasimportant to ensure that, for example,the chosen material was not collectedafter Linnaeus described the name (inwhich case it clearly could not havecontributed to forming his concept ofthe species he was naming). Forinstance, in naming the the smalltropical tree, Crescentia cujete L.(calabash) in 1753, Linnaeus used ashis sources a number of publisheddescriptions and illustrations fromother authors (including one that isidentifiable as an entirely differentspecies, Amphitecna latifolia (Mill.)Gentry). However, Linnaeus could nothave used the specimen (now inLinnaeus’ own herbarium at theLinnean Society of London (LINN)) thatGentry (1974: 831) chose as thelectotype. This is because the materialis marked as having come from PatrickBrowne (author of The Civil and NaturalHistory of Jamaica, published in 1756)


Above: Linnaeus’

original account

of Crescentia

cujete L. (1753).

No specimens

were cited but

there are

references to his

earlier Hortus

Cliffortianus

(1738), and

works by others

including

Commelin,

Plumier, Plukenet

and Sloane.

(© NHM)

Right:

The type of

Ginkgo biloba L.,

the maidenhair

tree, in Linnaeus’

herbarium. The

British

horticulturalist

James Gordon

sent living

material to

Linnaeus in

1769.

(© LINN)

and we know from his letters thatLinnaeus did not acquire Browne’sspecimens until 1758, five years afterCrescentia cujete was published. Itfollows that Browne’s specimen wasnot eligible to be selected as thelectotype, so the next choice (made byWijnands 1983), of an illustrationpublished by the English apothecary,Leonard Plukenet and cited byLinnaeus, is the lectotype of this name.

Designating new types

For the many names that, at the startof the Project, did not have adesignated type, studies were made ofthe preserved specimens andillustrations that Linnaeus used.Working in close collaboration withmany hundreds of specialists indifferent plant groups from around theworld, we have designated typespecimens for well over two thousandmore of his names. In concentrating onsome of the larger flowering plantgroups (e.g. the families Apiaceae,Asteraceae, Boraginaceae,Brassicaceae, Caryophyllaceae,Convolvulaceae, Cyperaceae,Ericaceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae,Orchidaceae, Poaceae, Ranunculaceaeand Rosaceae), type choices havebeen published by nearly 200specialists from 34 different countries.In addition, because Linnaeanbinomials are also the earliest for plantgroups such as the ferns and fern-allies, liverworts, lichens, some algae

and some fungi, we have alsopublished detailed accounts ofLinnaeus’ lichen (see Jørgensen et al.1994) and algal (see Spencer et al. inpress) names.

Linnaeus often drew his knowledge ofspecies, particularly from tropicalareas, from descriptions andillustrations (for specimens were simplyunavailable). As a consequence, about25 per cent of Linnaean names haveillustrations as their lectotypes. Theyinclude, for example, threatenedspecies such as Dracaena draco (L.) L.(dragon tree), Prunus lusitanicus L.subsp. lusitanicus (palo de loro),Cedrela odorata L. (Central Americancedar) and Santalum album L.(sandalwood).

The majority, however, do haveherbarium specimens as their types.Although many of these are found inLinnaeus’ own herbarium (LINN), e.g.Datisca cannabina L. (false hemp),Ginkgo biloba L. (maidenhair tree),Isoplexis (Digitalis) canariensis (L.)Loud. (cresto de gallo) and Droserarotundifolia L. (round-leaved sundew),others can be found in additionalherbaria that were studied by Linnaeus.Examples include the type of the night-flowering cactus, Selenicereusgrandiflorus (L.) Britton & Rose in theherbarium of the Anglo-Dutch bankerand plantsman, George Clifford, now atthe Natural History Museum in London(BM), and those of Mandragoraofficinalis L. (mandrake) and Parnassiapalustris L. (Grass of Parnassus), whichare in Joachim Burser’s herbarium inUppsala (UPS). Some, such asEpifagus virginiana (L.) W. Bart.(beechdrops) are in John Clayton’sherbarium of Virginian plants (BM),while others, e.g. Pavetta indica L. canbe found in Paul Hermann’s Ceylonherbarium (BM).

Project Publications

Much of the information we haveassembled during the Project isaccessible online via the NaturalHistory Museum website(http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/projects/linnaean-typification),and May 2007 will see the publicationof a major book, Order out of Chaos, a comprehensive, 1,200 page guide toLinnaean Plant Names and their types.

A co-publication between the LinneanSociety of London and the NaturalHistory Museum, this contains not onlya detailed catalogue of all Linnaeanbinomials for plants, it also detailsLinnaeus’ own publications and thoseof other botanists that contributed tohis understanding of plants. Significantplant collectors are enumerated, withexamples of important specimens fromLinnaeus’, and other, herbaria. Its publication coincides with thetercentenary of Linnaeus’ birth. A valuable contribution to the botanicalliterature, it will be of use to students,botanists, historians andconservationists worldwide, andanother aid to nomenclatural stability.For further information, see Booknotices and taxonomic resources.

Acknowledgements

The generous grant support of theLinnean Society of London to theLinnaean Plant Name TypificationProject is gratefully acknowledged.

References

➡Gentry, A. H. 1974. Bignoniaceae.In: R. E. Woodson & R. W. Schery,Flora of Panama. Ann. Missouri Bot.Gard. 60: 781-977.

➡Jarvis, C. E. in press. Order out ofChaos - Linnaean Plant Names andtheir Types. Linnean Society ofLondon and Natural HistoryMuseum, London.

➡Jørgensen, P. M., James, P. W. &Jarvis, C. E. 1994. The typification

of the lichen names described byLinnaeus. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 115:261-405.

➡McNeill, J. et al. 2006. InternationalCode of Botanical Nomenclature(Vienna Code). Regnum Vegetabile146: I-xviii, 1-568.

➡Spencer, M., Irvine, L. M. & Jarvis,C. E., in press. The typification ofLinnaean names relevant to algalnomenclature. Taxon.

➡Wijnands, D. O. 1983. The Botany ofthe Commelins. Balkema,Rotterdam.

Charlie JarvisE-mail: [email protected] address: Department ofBotany, Natural History Museum,Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UKInternet: (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/researchcuration/projects/linnaean-typification)Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5000Fax: +44 (0)20 7942 5529


Left: Jacket of

“Order out of

Chaos” by

Charlie Jarvis.

(© LINN and

NHM)

Below: The type

of the cactus

Selenicereus

grandiflorus (L.)

Britton & Rose

is in the

herbarium of the

Anglo-Dutch

horticulturalist,

George Clifford.

(© NHM)

Human society is dependent for survivalon our performing daily, countless actsof classification, both of the natural andphysical world. As humans we areprimarily dependent on visual inputs inour classificatory activities, in finding theway around our environment andchoosing which parts of biologicaldiversity suit our particular purpose,which explains the morphological biasin biological classification. A recenteditorial in Science (Wheeler et al. 2004)noted that “Society has a growing needfor credible taxonomic information inorder to allow us to conserve, manage,understand, and enjoy the naturalworld”, yet there is widespread mistrustof the activities of taxonomists, and thestate, aims, theory and practice ofclassification and taxonomy are thesubject of almost endless debate (e.g.Wortley et al. 2002; Vane-Wright 2003).Much of the debate revolves around twofundamental issues - the relationshipbetween taxonomic and phylogeneticmeasures of diversity (Humphries 2006)and between taxonomy andphylogenetic reconstruction(phylogenetic systematics), and thenature and delimitation of species.Added to this, another recent debateconcerns the way in which taxonomists“do business”, as Vane-Wright (2003)terms it.

Some aspects of taxonomy andsystematics, notably our knowledge ofthe relationships of the floweringplants, have undergone dramaticdevelopments in recent years, as theresult of the accumulation and analysisof molecular and phenetic data setsusing cladistic and other methods(Soltis et al. 2005). This has led todrastic changes in the circumscriptionof some well known families and themerger of others. Thus, the inclusion ofthe duckweeds, Lemnaceae, in theAraceae and of teak (Tectona) in arecircumscribed Lamiaceae may bedisconcerting for some.

The realignment of families suggestedas a result of molecular phylogeneticstudies may be of considerable interestin comparing the floras or faunas ofdifferent areas and in determining theirphyletic distinctiveness, but in practiceit seldom affects decisions on what toconserve, where to conserve or how toconserve. Of course, the same is trueof much of the work published injournals of conservation biology: itrarely informs the decisions of, say, theprotected area manager. On the otherhand, the use of DNA sequence andfinger-printing data can beincorporated along with morphologicaldata at the species and infraspecificlevel in biodiversity assessment andconservation (Caesar et al. 2006;Culham 2006), for example, indetermining more accurately whichpopulations of species to conserve.Although there are now manyexamples in the literature, it will be

some time before such procedures areroutinely applied. Another approach,known as DNA barcoding, has beenheralded by some as a panacea for theproblem of accurate speciesidentification in the field, but theapplication is dependent on the basicclassification of the groups concernedbeing available and the building up of adatabase of the sequence data ofcorrectly identified samples of knowntaxa against which new samples canbe compared.

A parallel development to themolecular advances has been therevolution in computer capacity andthe development of electronic systemsfor databases and information systems- biodiversity informatics - which havefacilitated the availability, storage,access and exchange of taxonomicand associated data.

In 2007 we shall be celebrating the300th anniversary of the birth ofLinnaeus, who laid the foundations formany of today’s taxonomic andnomenclatural procedures, althoughnow greatly modified and with a totallydifferent scientific philosophy. It isremarkable that despite the majormolecular and bioinformaticdevelopments, the procedures of basictaxonomy, such as field work, floristics,herbarium studies and essentiallymorphological description and keyconstruction, with the results publishedin stylised products such as Floras,remain in use. In fact it was such front-line work of morphologically based


Taxonomy and plant conservation

Author: Vernon Heywood

Above: An ABI

Prism automated

DNA sequencer

showing trnL-F

chloroplast DNA

sequences for

the endangered

Isoplexis

(Digitalis)

chalcantha and

relatives.

(Photo: A.

Culham)

taxonomy carried out over the past twoto three centuries that provided thebasis and context that made thesuccess of molecular systematicspossible and allowed the results to becommunicated effectively, at least forhigher organisms.

Concern has been expressed thatmolecular systematics and biodiversityinformatics have tended to draw effortaway from traditional taxonomic workand reduce the number of studentswho are willing to work in this area,and the dying out of naturalists. Thiscould have very serious consequencesfor biodiversity conservation. It isnotable that in the Global Strategy forPlant Conservation adopted by theParties to the Convention on BiologicalDiversity (CBD), the emphasis is onissues such as inventory, training andcapacity building, not on research.

The social dimensions oftaxonomy

Should taxonomists be concernedabout the the practical needs of thevarious user groups of taxonomy? Ihave myself always insisted that one ofthe aims of taxonomy is to provide aservice to the rest of biology, whileothers regard such a requirement assuperfluous. For example, in presentingwhat I termed a new paradigm fortaxonomy (Heywood 2001), Isuggested that, inter alia, it should besocially responsive to the needs ofsociety and be both scientifically soundand practicable. As I noted, “Nolonger can taxonomists judge the valueof their work just by the reactions oftheir taxonomic peers. As with otherbranches of science in this post-modernist world, a range of societalneeds has to be met”. This evoked theresponse from Schaal & Leverich(2001) that “We do not need to justifyour fields by making tenuousconnections to practical issues” and“Early biosystematists would be verysurprised at this turn to socialrelevancy, since much of ourdiscipline’s research has traditionallybeen in the pursuit of pure science”.Such a response contrasts with thetheme of the Third BioNET-INTERNATIONAL Global TaxonomyWorkshop (3GTW) held in Pretoria,South Africa: Partnerships for Demand-Driven Taxonomic Capacity Building.

Of course, no-one would argue that thepursuit of science should beconstrained by the need to be practicalbut, from its very origins, taxonomyhas been a means of communicatinginformation about the identity and also,in folk classifications, the properties oforganisms (Heywood 1985), so by itsvery nature it comprises both purelyscientific and practical aspects. Thiscan lead to conflicts where the scienceleads to results that may be onerous toapply in practice, such as theacceptance of groups that are notmorphologically recognizable.Likewise, the application of certainspecies’ concepts and definitionswhere the criteria cannot readily bemet or would lead to consequencesunacceptable to many, such as themultiplication of the number of speciesrecognized, is clearly limited. This isnot a new situation if one recalls thedecades when the biological speciesconcept dominated taxonomicthinking, although a majority of planttaxonomists did not in practice follow it(even though many claimed to do so!).This gap between theory and practicewas what I termed double-think - doingone thing while professing to be doingsomething else (Heywood 1983).

Species have to be used by a widerange of interest groups includingbiodiversity and conservationpractitioners and as Cracraft (2000)uncompromisingly states: “… we should be careful in seekingjustification for a particular speciesconcept if it cannot embrace thevagaries of real-world data withaplomb. No hemming. No hawing. Itmust work. This does not mean thatwe should abandon theory andphilosophy, ontology andepistemology, individuality, reality,pattern versus process, and all theother notions that orbit arounddiscussions of species concepts. Butwe must keep our feet firmly plantedon the ground”.

Taxonomy, systematics andbiodiversity conservation

Despite the disagreements about itsnature and aims and the difficulties ofdefining species and other taxa,taxonomy has a pivotal role to play inthe assessment and conservation ofbiological diversity and is in fact one of

the main disciplines that led to itsemergence as a concept. Taxonomicdiversity is one of the maincomponents of biological diversity andthe species is one of the most usedunits to measure it, although there areof course many other measures thatcan be applied.

Of course, it does not help that severaldifferent species concepts -morphological/phenetic, biological,evolutionary, phylogenetic - arecurrently in use by taxonomists andwhat is more, there is little likelihood ofreaching agreement on a unifiedconcept in the foreseeable future(Cracraft 2000). Because differentspecies are not equivalent in terms oftheir evolutionary history, speciesdiversity is regarded as insufficientwhen attempting to maximize theamount of phylogenetic diversity in theselection of protected areas, and so-called complementarity-basedmethods have been applied in anumber of instances to achieve this(Rodrigues & Gaston 2002).

A recent editorial in Nature (29September 2005), entitled “Bridgingthe gulf”, calls for ecologists andconservationists to work more closelywith economists. Equally, effortsshould also be made to bridge the gulfbetween taxonomists, conservationbiologists and practitioners. It seemssurprising that the problems ofconservation have been largelyregarded as the concern of theecologist (and subsequently of theconservation biologist), while thetaxonomist’s role has remainedsomewhat vague, despite being key forour knowledge of the environment(Heywood 1971, 1973b). Both groupsneed to cooperate more closely: on theone hand, taxonomists should considerhow they might contribute moreeffectively to conservation planningand on the other hand,conservationists should be prepared tofamiliarize themselves with the natureof the taxonomic process, itsadvantages and limitations. It is often,incorrectly, assumed that taxonomicknowledge will be available or at leastcan be produced on demand for allgroups that they work on. Recommendations for closercooperation between taxonomists andconservationists have been made by


Golding & Timberlake (2003), Heywood(2003a), Lowry & Smith (2003), Leadlayand Jury (2006) and others.

It is not normally realized, especially bydecision makers, just how incompleteis the inventory and state of knowledgefor most groups of organisms and thatthe vast majority of species describedin the literature are “herbarium” or“museum” species, based on a smallnumber of often unrepresentativesamples (often just the originalcollection), about which we only knowa few morphological facts, and theirexistence as coherent, repeatablepopulation-based phenomena is onlysuppositional (Heywood, 1988: 48).Completion of the inventory has beengiven high priority by the CBD and theGlobal Strategy for Plant Conservationgives as Target 1 for the year 2010: Awidely accessible working list of knownplant species, as a step towards acomplete world flora. Even for suchwell-studied groups as the FloweringPlants, little is known of the majority ofspecies apart from some basic facts oftheir morphology and localization: formost of them, their demography,reproductive biology, breeding system,genetic variability and so on isunstudied. Yet the fact is that for manypurposes, conservationists requireinformation beyond identification anddescription of species such as data onbreeding and movement of species.This has led to calls for taxonomists totake into account the needs ofconservation in designing Floras andother taxonomic outputs. Golding &Smith (2001), for example, note thatFlora volumes are a prime resource forthe preparation of Red Data Books andare relied upon, along with herbariumspecimens, as a source of data for thispurpose, especially in many developingcountries. They point out that Floras(and for animals, Faunas) are oftenused to make best estimates andinferences regarding the distribution

ranges of the taxa concerned and theirdegree of rarity. As Floras were notdesigned for this purpose, Golding andSmith suggest a 13-point strategy tofacilitate this purpose, including:

• Stating if the plant is only knownfrom the type specimen

• Citing as many collections/localitiesas possible so as to give a generalindication of the frequency of thetaxon

• Citing endemic status within thearea concerned

• Giving as much information aspossible of the distribution andhabitat data, especially in the caseof endemics

• Citing collections from NationalParks if possible

Whatever reservations one may haveabout such a strategy, the point madeis a valid one that taxonomists shouldconsult more often with conservationcolleagues about the ways in whichthey (and their products) might bemade more useful for a range ofconservation purposes.

A particular case where taxonomictools such as Floras and Faunas arecritical for conservation is in thepreparation of lists of threatenedspecies (Red Data Lists or Red Books).In fact, it is the lack of taxonomicinformation that has been largelyresponsible for the dearth of threatassessments for species in tropicalcountries. A much closer allianceshould be established between RedList authorities and taxonomists and Ihave suggested (Heywood 2003b) thatconsideration should be given tonominating a Taxonomic Focal Point orCentre in countries where StandardFloras and identification manuals areoutdated or non-existent.

While much effort has been made inrecent years to improve the criteria forthe definition of the IUCN categories ofthreat, little attention has been paid tothe problems posed by the differentspecies concepts used by differentauthors, let alone the majordevelopment in taxonomic thinking inrecent decades. This need is well putby Cracraft (2000), who reminds usthat “systematics is the fundamentalscience of biodiversity … and speciesare arguably systematics’ elementary

particles, and there are practicalconsequences to every speciesconcept if those elementary particlesare not discovered and understoodproperly”.

The consequences of inaccuratetaxonomy can be serious or even fatal.Accurate taxonomic information is anessential underpinning for much workin biological conservation. Correctidentification of species is an essentialstep in many conservation strategiesas it provides not only the key to theassociated literature but establishesthe basis for repeatability (Miller et al.1989). The value of accessions inbotanic gardens, for example, dependscritically on their correct identification ifthey are to be used as conservationresources or as reference material, arequirement not, alas, met by manycollections.

The use of classifications in Floras andhandbooks is bedevilled by problemsof synonymy which can be confusingto many users. It is simply an historicalfact that the same species or othertaxon can have several to manysynonyms. Failure to understand thesignificance of synonymy can haveunexpectedly serious consequences.

The potentially serious consequences ofmistaken designation of synonyms atthe specific and infraspecific level arepointed out by Leme (2003), who notesthat they can lead to “nominalextinction” through their disappearancefrom official endangered species listsand inclusion in ecological or floristicstudies, so that they do not benefit fromconservation action. For example, thebromeliad Vriesea botafogensis Mez.,which is endemic to the cities of Niteróiand Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) andthreatened with extinction by humanactivities, was reduced to a synonym ofanother species endemic to Rio deJaneiro, V. saundersii (Carrière) Mez in1955 and thus could have becomeextinct by nomenclaturally causedneglect until it was restored as aseparate species in 1994.Synonymy is a major deterrent to theuse of taxonomic data and this is likelyto continue for many years untiladequate synonymic checklists areavailable for all countries or regions. The increasing use of electronicdatabases and information systems is


Right: The

threatened

bromeliad

Vriesea

botafogensis

growing

in the wild in

Brazil. Although

formerly

regarded as a

synonym of

V. saundersii it

is now again

recognized as

a distinct

species. (Photo:

Claudio Ricardo

Peixoto

França)

likely to provide some relief, in thatinformation on a taxon may be achievedby entering a variety of names otherthan the currently accepted or “correct”one under the Code. Eventually,alternative classifications will be offeredso that a species will no longernecessarily belong to just one highertaxon in any classificatory system.

Conclusion

It is incontestable that the conservationand sustainable use of biodiversityrequires accurate taxonomicknowledge of its components.However, taxonomic data alone will notof course lead to effective action:conservation also depends onmultidisciplinary cooperation thatincludes taxonomy, and political will.While this may seem self-evident, itarises as part of the ongoing debate asto whether one ought to give priority toconserving ecosystems or species, notthat they are alternatives. For example,Brooks et al. (2004) argue for speciesdata being a better option for planningprotected areas than relying on broad-scale attributes, a viewpoint vigorouslyrebuffed by Cowling et al. (2004), whocomment that data do not savespecies. On the other hand, without anaccurate knowledge of species, muchof conservation will be in the dark.

References

➡Brooks, T. M., da Fonseca, G. A. B& Rodrigues, A. S. L. 2004.Protected areas and species.Conservation Biology 18: 616-617.

➡Caesar, R. M., Sörensson, M. &Cognato, A. I. 2006. IntegratingDNA data and traditional taxonomyto streamline biodiversityassessment: an example fromedaphic beetles in the Klamathecoregion, California, USA. Diversityand Distributions 12: 483-489.

➡Cowling, R. M., Knight, A. T., Faith,D. P., Ferrier, S., Lombard, A. T.,Driver, A., Rouget, M., Maze, K. &Desmet, P. G. 2004. ConservationBiology 18: 1674-1676.

➡Culham, A. C. 2006. Molecularsystematics: measuring andmonitoring diversity. In: Leadlay, E.& Jury, S. (eds), Taxonomy and PlantConservation. Pp. 236-254.Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

➡Cracraft, J. 2000. Species conceptin theoretical and applied biology: asystematic debate withconsequences. Pp. 3-14 In: Wheeler,Q. D. & Meier, R. (eds) 2000. SpeciesConcepts and Phylogenetic Theory:A Debate. Columbia UniversityPress, New York.

➡Golding, J. S. & Timberlake, J.2003. How taxonomists can bridgethe gap between taxonomy andconservation science. ConservationBiology 17: 1177-1178.

➡Golding, J. S. & Smith, P. P. 2001. A13-point flora strategy to meetconservation strategies. Taxon 50:475-477.

➡Heywood, V. 1971. Preservation ofthe European flora - Thetaxonomist’s role. Bulletin du JardinBotanique National de Belgique 41:153-166.

➡Heywood, V. H. 1973. Ecologicaldata in practical taxonomy. In:Heywood, V. H. (ed.), Taxonomy andEcology. Pp. 329-347. AcademicPress, London & New York.

➡Heywood, V. H. 1983. Themythology of taxonomy.Transactions of the BotanicalSociety of Edinburgh 44: 79-94.

➡Heywood, V. 1985. Linnaeus - theconflict between science andscholasticism. In: Weinstock, J.(ed.), Contemporary Perspectives onLinnaeus. Pp. 1-15. University Pressof America, Lanham, New York &London.

➡Heywood, V. H. 1988. The structureof systematics. In: Hawksworth, D.L. (ed.) Prospects in Systematics.Pp. 44-56. Clarendon Press, Oxford(1989).

➡Heywood, V. H. 2001. Floristics andmonography - an uncertain future?Taxon 50: 361-380.

➡Heywood, V. 2003a. Meeting thedemands for taxonomic informationfrom users in conservation andgenetic resources. PhytologiaBalcanica 9: 425-433.

➡Heywood, V. 2003b. Red Listing -too clever by half? Plant Talk 31: 5.

➡Humphries, C. J. 2006. Measuringdiversity. In: Leadlay, E. & Jury, S.(eds), Taxonomy and PlantConservation. Pp. 141-161.Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

➡Leadlay, E. & Jury, S. (eds), Taxonomyand Plant Conservation. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

➡Leme, E. M. C. 2003. Nominalextinction and the taxonomist’sresponsibility: the example ofBromeliaceae in Brazil. Taxon 52:299-302.

➡Lowry, P. P. & Smith, P. P. 2003.Closing the gulf between botanistsand conservationists. ConservationBiology 17: 1175-1176.

➡Miller, D. R., Rossman, A. Y. &Kirkbride, J. H. 1989. Systematics,diversity, and germplasm. In:Knutson, Ll. & Stoner, A. K. (eds),Beltsville Symposia in AgriculturalResearch [13] Biotic Diversity andGermplasm Preservation. GlobalImperatives. Pp. 3-11. KluwerAcademic Publishers, Dordrecht,Boston & London.

➡Rodrigues A. S. L. & Gaston, K. J.2002. Maximising phylogeneticdiversity in the selection of networksof conservation areas. ConservationBiology 105: 103-111.

➡Schaal, B. A. & Leverich, W. J. 2001.Plant population biology andsystematics. Taxon 50: 679-695.

➡Soltis, D. E., Soltis, P. S., Endress, P.K. & Chase, M. W. 2005. Phylogenyand Evolution of Angiosperms.Sinauer Associates, SunderlandMass.

➡Vane-Wright, R. I. 2003. Indifferentphilosophy versus AlmightyAuthority: on consistency,consensus and unitary authority.Systematics and Biodiversity 1: 3-11.

➡Wheeler, Q. D., Raven, P. H. &Wilson, E. O. 2004. Taxonomy:impediment or expedient? Science303: 285.

➡Wheeler, Q. D. & Meier, R. (eds) 2000.Species Concepts and PhylogeneticTheory: A Debate. ColumbiaUniversity Press, New York.

➡Wortley, A. H., Bennett, J. R. &Scotland, R. W. 2002. Taxonomyand phylogeny reconstruction: twodistinct research agendas insystematics. Edinburgh Journal ofBotany 59: 335-349.

Vernon HeywoodE-mail: [email protected] address: Centre for PlantDiversity & Systematics, School ofBiological Sciences, Plant ScienceLaboratories, Whiteknights,Reading RG6 6AS, UK,Tel: +44 (0) 118 978 0185Fax: +44 (0) 118 989 1745Internet: www.biosci.rdg.ac.uk



Botanic gardens have plenty of uses,but I want to talk about just one aspecthere: how important are the livingcollections for systematics andtaxonomic research? As the head of amajor world botanic garden, I oftenpontificate on the importance of thecollection for science. The link tohorticulture (and the development andmaintenance of cultivars) is relativelyeasy to explain. The link toconservation is also relativelystraightforward (see Makinson 2006),although often overplayed in terms ofthe ex situ importance of the livingcollection seen by most visitors. But dowe need the collection for systematics,for discovering how plants haveevolved, their relationships, and howthey are best classified? Well, yes we do.

Firstly let me narrow the definitiondown a little. Prompted by Makinson(2006), I will exclude seedbanks andother forms of storing genetic material(e.g. tissue collections), and discussonly the whole plants that populate ourbotanic gardens. These are whatMakinson calls “whole-plant livecollections”, and which I will lazily call“living collections”. Systematicsscience and botanic gardens have hada close association since the time ofLinnaeus, but why, and is this link stillrelevant?

I can think of a dozen, somewhatoverlapping, reasons why livingcollections are important forsystematics but have grouped them

Botanical buffet - the importance ofliving collections for plantsystematics

Author: Tim Entwisle

Right: Alloxylon

pinnatum at

Mount Tomah

Botanic Garden,

Sydney. (Photo:

Botanic Gardens

Trust, Jaime

Plaza)

here into three main areas. These are:the range of material, the value of livingmaterial and the access to otherinformation. Hay and Herscovitch(1997) covered some of the sameground in their passionate plea for theresponsible sharing of livingcollections. Like them, I’ve drawnexamples from the science programsat the Botanic Gardens Trust toillustrate my points.

Range of material

A botanic garden collects togetherplants from many different places andgrows them in a relatively containedarea (although up to 400 ha in the caseof our Mount Annan Botanic Garden,or 900 ha for the XishuangbannaTropical Botanical Garden in southernChina…). This provides easy access toa wide range of living plants andefficiencies in sampling. So oursystematist can observe and sample agreat diversity of plants in the oneplace. This saves the costs oforganizing extensive field trips whichmay or may not be successful.

Our understanding of plant diversity isorganised around plant families. Over80 per cent of the approximately 450families are easy to recognize and are,for the most part, thought to bemonophyletic. The AngiospermPhylogeny Group has rebuilt theevolutionary tree for flowering plantsfrom molecular data (Chase et al. 1993)which is helping us understand thetaxonomy of plant families. Almost halfof the 499 species sampled in the 1993paper, representing about 265 families,were from botanic gardens (in laterpapers the percentage was evenhigher, driven partly by Mark Chase’smove to the Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew). It would have taken many more

years to complete and we would havea much poorer knowledge of thephylogeny of angiosperms today if therich living collections held by botanicgardens around the world, includingthose in Sydney, were not available forthis research.

Botanic Gardens Trust scientist PeterWeston and his colleagues havepublished extensively on the phylogenyand biogeography of the iconicsouthern hemisphere familyProteaceae. For their paper on SouthAfrican Proteaceae (Barker et al. 2002),all but a couple of the 50 speciessampled were from botanic gardens inSouth Africa and Australia - many arerare and difficult to sample in the wild.

Botanic gardens also hold uniquecollections of species or variants whichno longer exist in the wild (e.g.Sophora toromiro from Easter Island),or are inaccessible due to political orregulatory constraints.

There is often more variety in botanicalmaterial available, particularly at thegeneric level, in a botanic garden thanwould be possible to access through

even extensive field collecting. A largenumber of genera can sometimes besampled in one place. Darren Crayn, a systematist at the Botanic GardensTrust, made extensive use of thecollections held at Marie SelbyBotanical Gardens in Florida, when hewas working as a post-doc at theSmithsonian Tropical Research Institutein Panama. He identified CAM(crassulacean acid metabolism, usuallyfound in plants living under aridconditions) photosynthesis bymeasuring C12 to C13 ratios (reflectingthe different enzymes used in CAM andC3 photosynthesis, and their differentaffinities for C13) in 56 of the 57 generaof Bromeliaceae, and 1,873 of theapproximately 2,890 species. Craynfound that CAM photosynthesis andthe epiphytic habit had evolved severaltimes. At least 90 per cent of the taxasampled were from living collections(Crayn et al. 2004), so this work wasmade practically possible by collectingfrom botanic gardens.

There is also an opportunity cost in notbringing plant material into cultivation.Our systematist can swan along theAmazon or the Roper and collect bits


Above: Rock

Garden at

Mount Tomah

Botanic Garden,

Sydney

featuring

proteas. (Photo:

Botanic Gardens

Trust, Jaime

Plaza)

Left: Bromeliads

in the Tropical

Centre at Royal

Botanic Gardens

Sydney. (Photo:

Botanic Gardens

Trust, Jaime

Plaza)

and pieces of intriguing new species,but we don’t know what will be usefulin 10 or a 100 years’ time. We don’tknow what bit of the plant mightprovide useful data once back in thelaboratory examining our pickings. We add value by collecting propagationmaterial and maintaining that plant inthe living collection. There is a cost, ofcourse, in caring for any plantintroduced into a botanic garden, butthere is often a greater cost in notintroducing it when you have theopportunity…

Value of living material

Many characters, e.g. morphology,chemistry (including genetic markers),chromosomes, and so on, are bestexamined from living material. It isusually easier to sample in a botanicgarden than in the natural habitat and abotanic garden may be able to providemore material than is available in thewild.

In a recent treatment of the waratahs(Telopea and its relatives), 14 of the 16taxa examined were grown in botanicgardens, making it straightforward toassess characters from leaf anatomyand floral development using livingmaterial (Weston & Crisp 1994).

The results of the analysis supportedcontinental breakup (from Gondwana)and climate change as the key driversbehind the present diversity ofwaratahs and where they occur in theSouthern Hemisphere.

Systematists can observe a plantthroughout its life history, seeingfeatures that may not be visible at thetime of a field visit (e.g. buds, flowers,fruits…). They can also watch howfruits develop, how a flower opens oreven the germination of seed and itsearly growth. Ken Hill and LawrieJohnson used seedlings grown at theRoyal Botanic Gardens in Sydney tohelp formulate their incisive views onthe classification of Australianeucalypts, including rearrangements tothe generic and subgenericclassification (e.g. Hill & Johnson 1995).

Most systematists value livingcollections as an adjunct to extensiveherbarium collections. A plant that istaken directly from the wild andpreserved is a true representative ofthe taxon and will provide informationto many generations of taxonomists.However, examination of a living planthelps to avoid misinterpretation andmisunderstanding of the morphology.Botanic Gardens Trust Honorary

Associate, Alistair Hay, grew andstudied extensive collections of aroidsas part of his detailed monograph of agenus of the Araceae (e.g. Hay &Yuzammi 2000). The accuracy of thetaxonomy relied on detailedobservations on developing flowers,including their colour, odour and pollenshed. Inflorescences are difficult to findin the field, and a single herbariumcollection will rarely include all stagesof development.

It is usually easier to sample in abotanic garden than in the naturalhabitat, the hard work having beendone already by the original collector.Our systematist can choose a day tosuit the diary, or work around theflowering time of the plant (which maybe well recorded or which can bemonitored by a colleague at thebotanic garden). The scientists citedhere all work in the botanic gardens ofthe Botanic Gardens Trust in Sydney,and are just part of the expertiseavailable.

A botanic garden may also be able toprovide more material than is availablein the wild. This can be particularly trueof a species that is rare or difficult tosample in its natural habitat. Forexample, there are fewer than 100


Right:

Proteaceae

garden. (Photo:

Botanic Gardens

Trust, Jaime

Plaza)

individuals surviving in the naturalhabitat of the Wollemi Pine (Wollemianobilis) near Sydney. These relictualpopulations are protected to stop theintroduction of life-threatening fire anddisease. For over ten years thecollections held by the BotanicGardens Trust have been used to studynot only the pine’s biology andecology, but also its surprisingphylogeny and classification. TheWollemi Pine is the only species in thethird living genus (Wollemia) of theconifer family Araucariaceae. It hasfeatures in common with the otherliving genera Agathis and Araucaria aswell as with Cretaceous and earlyTertiary fossil groups such asAraucarioides. A successfulpropagation research programme hasresponded to the great demand fromgardens around the world. Thisresearch is based on the botanicgardens’ collection.

John Thomson, an Honorary Associatewith the Botanic Gardens Trust,needed to repeatedly samplespecimens of bracken (Pteridium) toimprove his extraction technique forDNA fingerprinting, in order to resolvethe complex network of hybrids andpolyploids obscuring the species leveltaxonomy in this genus (Thomson2000). Herbarium material of bracken istypically very fragmentary - sometimesjust a few pinnae from an unspecifiedpart of the frond and a piece of stipe.Professor Thomson used the extensiveliving collections which he hadassembled to look at complete fronds,and all the fronds at all stages ofdevelopment. He found that the pinnaeon each frond form a Mandelbrotseries, and that the basal (or nearbasal) pinnae are the most reliable forcomparative morphometric purposes(Thomson et al. 2005). It can bedifficult to accurately locate theposition of a pinna on a frond from thedried fragments held in herbaria.

By growing a wide range of closelyrelated species together, botanicgardens can provide “standardconditions”, allowing the morphologyand chemistry of plants to becompared without local variations inthe environment. Conditions can becontrolled even more strongly inglasshouses for experimental studies.For example, key diagnostic characters

such as the morphology of theindumentum are known to beenvironmentally variable in many ferngenera. John Thomson (see above)used a “standardised environment” tohelp him define morphological groupsof bracken that matched the results ofhis extensive molecular sequencingwork. He has also been able to usethese standard conditions to test theuse of chemicals such as ptaquilosidesfor their use as characters in taxonomy(Smith et al. 1994).

Mycologists from the Botanic GardensTrust Sydney in Australia, and theUniversity of Stellenbosch in SouthAfrica (Crous et al. 2000) made gooduse of the living collections of fourbotanic gardens in Tasmania and NewSouth Wales to make a first cut of thefungal diversity on the leaves ofAustralian Proteaceae. BrettSummerell, from the Trust, notes thatwhat would have taken many monthsand considerable resources to samplefrom natural habitats, was completedin less than a week, and examiningliving material was quicker thanexamining dried material. Theirresearch gives us a snapshot of thefungal species likely to occur in thenatural habitats of the host species.

Importantly, the botanic gardenscollection is a potentially sustainablesource of scientific material and takesthe pressure off wild material. A collection can also be part of aneducational or horticultural display; thecontinued growing of the individualsand/or their offspring should berelatively economical as well.

Access to other information

Botanic gardens are institutionsdedicated to research into plantdiversity. Their facilities and staffunderpin systematic research.

By checking the database (whether oncomputer, on cards, or in the heads ofexperts, or any combination of these),our systematist can find out quicklywhether a plant is held in a givenBotanic Garden or not, and if it hasreached a stage when it displayscritical features (such as flowers orfruits). Additional information, such aswhat other scientific information mayexist (e.g. herbarium collections, DNA

extractions, photographs), may also beavailable. All papers cited here haveused data from the various livingcollections databases to help locatethe plant material they have utilised -its origins as well as its location in abotanic garden.

Taxonomists need access tocollections of preserved plants(herbarium and spirit collections) and agood botanical library if they are tosupply good species descriptions anddistribution information, identificationtools and sound nomenclature. At theBotanic Gardens Trust, our three keyscientific assets are the livingcollections on all our estates, thespecimens in the National Herbariumof New South Wales, and the books,archives and other materials held in theRoyal Botanic Gardens Library. Whileefforts are being made to make labelinformation and images of preservedspecimens available on the web, andan increasing amount of scientificliterature is available on-line meansthat some of these data may beavailable in the field, it’s not quite thesame - at least not yet.

Much of the best information is held inthe minds of our scientists,horticulturalists, teachers and otherstaff and associates. Together they areperhaps the fourth great scientificasset of the Botanic Gardens Trust.Botanic gardens around the world willeither have their own experts inparticular plant groups or can locatesomeone close by.

Conclusion

So this “botanical buffet” is awonderful thing. Is there a chance thatit is an expensive indulgence? It isimportant to have a focussedcollections policy so there is a widerange of species (not only those thatby chance are maintained in ourbotanic gardens collections), be awarethat the collection might be a limitedgenetic subset grown in gardens, beaware of possible errors in recordkeeping translated into our thinking,and so on. But on balance, theconvenience and potential of the livingcollections in our botanic gardens aretoo important to ignore, or indeed takefor granted.


Systematics is all the better for havingthese collections at its disposal. Thecrux of this relationship is good recordkeeping that allows the systematist torelate his or her findings back to thenatural world - the botanic garden is agreat surrogate as long as the primarydata is accurate. And the better thesystematics, the better decisions wecan make about the wise use andmanagement of our natural world (butthat’s another story).

References

➡Barker, N. P., Weston, P. H., Rourke,J. P. & Reeves, G. 2002. Therelationships of the southern AfricanProteaceae as elucidated by internaltranscribed spacer (ITS) DNAsequence data. Kew Bulletin 57:867-883.

➡Chase M. W., Soltis D. E., OlmsteadR. G. et al. 1993. Phylogenetics ofseed plants: an analysis of nucleotidesequences from the plastid generbcL. Annals of the Missouri BotanicalGarden 80: 528-580.

➡Crayn, D., Winter, K. & Smith, J. A.C. 2004. Multiple origins ofcrassulacean acid metabolism andthe epiphytic habit in theNeotropical family Bromeliaceae.Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the UnitedStates of America 101: 3703-3708.

➡Crous, P. W., Summerell, B. A.,Taylor, J. E. & Bullock, S. 2000.Fungi occurring on Proteaceae inAustralia: selected foliicolousspecies. Australasian PlantPathology 29: 267-278.

➡Hay, A. & Herscovitch, C. 1997.Living collections and taxonomy ofMalesian Araceae: a basis forconservation. Conservation into the21st Century - Proceedings of the4th International Botanic GardensConservation Congress (Eds.Touchell, D. H., Dixon, K. W.,George, A. S. & Wills, R. T.) pp. 301-307. (BGCI, London.)

➡Hay, A. & Yuzammi 2000.Schismatoglottideae (Araceae) inMalesia I - Schismatoglottis. Telopea9: 1-177.

➡Hill, K. D. & Johnson, L. A. S. 1995.Systematic studies in the eucalypts,7. A revision of the bloodwoods,genus Corymbia (Myrtaceae).Telopea 6: 185-504.

➡Makinson, R. O. 2006. BotanicGardens and Conservation. In PlantConservation Genetics, ed. R. J.Henry, pp. 75-90, The HaworthPress, New York.

➡Smith, B. L., Seawright, A. A, Ng, J.C., Hertle, A. T., Thomson, J. A. &Bostock, P. D. 1994. Concentrationof ptaquiloside, a major carcinogenin bracken fern (Pteridium spp.),from eastern Australia and from a

cultivated worldwide collection heldin Sydney, Australia. Natural Toxins2: 347-353.

➡Thomson, J. A. 2000. Morphologicaland genomic diversity in the genusPteridium (Dennstaedtiaceae). Annalsof Botany 85 (Suppl. B): 77-99.

➡Thomson, J. A., Chikuni, A. C. &McMaster, C. S. (2005). Thetaxonomic status and relationshipsof bracken ferns (Pteridium:Dennstaedtiaceae) from sub-Saharan Africa. Botanical Journal ofthe Linnean Society 148: 311-321.

➡Weston, P. H. & Crisp, M. D. 1994.Cladistic biogeography of waratahs(Proteaceae: Embothrieae) and theirallies across the Pacific. AustralianSystematic Botany 7: 225-249.

Tim EntwisleE-mail: [email protected] address: Botanic GardensTrust (including Royal BotanicGardens, Domain, Mount TomahBotanic Garden and Mount AnnanBotanic Garden) Mrs MacquariesRoad, Sydney NSW 2000, AustraliaTel: +61-2-9231 8112Fax: +61-2-9251 4403Internet: www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au


Right:

Amorphophallus

titanum. (Photo:

Botanic Gardens

Trust, Simone

Cottrell)

A species without a name does notexist in terms of science andconservation. Each plant species has aunique scientific name that is the tagthat allows it to be found, counted,researched, and monitored, and theindex key that retrieves everything weknow about it from the Internet, books,studies, databases and specimens.The specimens in turn document thephysical attributes of the plant, and itsgeographic distribution.

Taxonomy is the work that gives theplant its scientific name and classifiesit among all the other plants in theworld. The classification encodesinformation about which other speciesare related to our plant, and thus

indexes yet more information about ourplant - the diseases that attack itsrelatives and so might also attack ourplant, poisonous chemicals or drugsthose other species contain that mightbe found in our plant too, or otherspecies that might be crossed with ourplant to introduce resistance traits.

Taxonomy is the same as other areasof biology: it is only as good as theavailable information. More informationis always useful, and sometimes makesus change our minds; in taxonomy achange based on new informationtakes the form of a change in scientificname. Thus as new information flowsin, names sometimes change inresponse; and new information is

flowing in rapidly for tropical plants.Tropical regions are areas of highpriority for conservation work becauseof their rich biodiversity and the rapidrates of habitat destruction; andironically, tropical organisms are verymuch less known scientifically thantemperate organisms. As a result,taxonomy and conservation run upagainst each other in these regions,where the plants are being cataloguedand identified scientifically at the sametime as these areas are being urgentlyassessed for conservation priority andmanagement.

South America is estimated to haveone of the richest floras in the world, ifnot the richest of all. The estimates ofits plant richness vary widelydepending on who does the estimate,as do counts of plant species forindividual tropical countries, parks andother sites. Generally the estimate ofspecies number for a tropical sitestarts with a count of the speciesalready known from there, andextrapolates to add some proportion ofspecies expected to be discoveredthere in the future. This discovery rateis relatively high for tropical areas, withdiscoveries coming from both boots-on-the-ground exploration and detailedtaxonomic study of the plants theexplorers collect there. Explorationtakes different forms; one widely usedapproach in South America is the Rapid Biological Inventory (RAP), whichdocuments the plants found, with driedscientific specimens being made forlater taxonomic study. RAP inventories

BGCI • 2007 • BGjournal • Vol 4 (1) • 21-23 21

Taxonomy is the tool that measuresplant diversity – and our level ofknowledge

Author: Charlotte M. Taylor

Left: Nototriche

hartwegii is a

herb of the

Mallow family

that has

recently been

found in the

high Andes

Mountains of

Ecuador, adding

another species

to the country’s

flora. (Photo:

Carmen Ulloa

Ulloa)

1. “New Records”, or range extensions,are species that are already known toscience from other regions, which havenow been newly discovered in thisparticular country. These all constituteadditions to the country’s known plantdiversity. These additions depend ongood taxonomic knowledge of thewhole regional flora, so the samespecies can be identified throughoutthe region. Knowing these regionalpatterns of species distributions isessential for evaluation of the biologicaluniqueness of an area, and these rangeextensions often extend or refine thelimits of areas of conservation concern.

2. “Taxonomic Changes” result whenour improved knowledge of a plantspecies shows that it needs a differentname. These are therefore changes inthe scientific name but not usually inthe identities or number of the speciesin the area, and thus do not change thediversity estimates for the flora. Thesechanges do indicate our level ofknowledge of the plants: more changesindicate that our knowledge isincreasing.

Some taxonomic changes arise from theunfortunate discovery that two plants indifferent regions actually belong to thesame species, so although theypreviously had two different names, nowthey have only one name and the othername is subsumed, or “synonymized”,under the first name. Other taxonomicchanges arise when new informationshows that the previous classificationwas not correct, and the plant nowneeds to be “moved” to a new genus ora new family. Such name changes canbe frustrating to a field biologist – butcan assist in finding close relatives ofthat plant, which may possess forexample, resistance genes for adevastating fungus.

3. “New Species” are plants that arepresented to science for the very firsttime, by receiving their first scientificdescription and their first scientificname. Some of these are surprisingorganisms that have never been seenbefore; while others have been “hiding”inside known species, with the samename being unknowingly applied totwo different plants until a taxonomistfound the confusion. The addition ofnew species directly increases theknown diversity of the region.


make specimens because goodtaxonomic knowledge of an area’splants is absolutely basic to a goodconservation assessment. Knowingthe level of taxonomic knowledge ofthe region is just as essential forconservation as understanding itsgeology and history of humanoccupation.

One measure of an area’s level oftaxonomic knowledge is its rate ofchange. The rate of change in ourtaxonomic knowledge of SouthAmerican plants has recently been

measured for two of its mostbotanically rich countries, Ecuador andPeru. A comprehensive catalogue ofall the plant species known from eachcountry was published first for Peru(Brako & Zarucchi, 1993), then shortlyafterwards for Ecuador (Jørgensen &León-Yánez, 1999). Aferwards all thesubsequent taxonomic changes forthese countries’ plants were trackedand compiled (Peru: Ulloa et al., 2004;Ecuador: Ulloa & Neill, 2005). Theoriginal checklist numbers andsubsequent taxonomic changes aresummarized below:

Number of Area (km2) Elapsed Number of Percent Species Time Changes Change

Ecuador 15,901 276,840 5 years 1,246 8%Peru 17,143 1,280,000 10 years 1,845 11%

New Records Taxonomic Changes New Species

Ecuador 337 (27%) 89 (7%) 820 (66%)Peru 669 (36%) 336 (18%) 840 (46%)

Above: Páramo

del Cajas lies

above the

treeline in the

Andes

Mountains of

Ecuador, and is

where

Nototriche

hartwegii grows.

(Photo: Carmen

Ulloa Ulloa)

The number of changes show specifically the improvement in knowledge of theflora of each country: about what plant species grow there, and about what theseplants “are” - widespread common species, local endemic species, rare speciesof conservation concern, invasive plants, living fossils, species of economicimportance, etc.

Where do these taxonomic changes come from? There are three categories ofchanges, which are shown below as the number of species in each categoryfollowed by the percentage this category comprises of the total number ofchanges for that country:

When our knowledge of a region’splants is deep, the names are generallystable, few new species arediscovered, and few significant rangeextensions turn up. Thus a high rate oftaxonomic change, as in the examplesof Ecuador and Peru, shows that ourknowledge was limited; while relativelystable names, as for many temperateEuropean and North American plants,shows that our knowledge is rathergood. The rate of taxonomic changethus provides a quick estimate of thelevel of knowledge on whichconservation assessments are beingbased.

Do the numbers above indicate thatPeru is richer in plant species thanEcuador? Not necessarily, becausePeru covers a much larger area thanEcuador so more plant species wouldbe expected to live there. Here in factthe generally similar numbers of speciesreported for these two countriestogether with the large difference intheir areas actually suggest that theplants of Peru are less well known thanEcuador’s flora. Looking at this in moredetail, RAP inventories of somegenerally comparable areas in thesetwo countries support this taxonomicimpression that Peru may be morediverse botanically. For example, theinventory of Serranías Cofá, Bermejo,and Sinangoe in Andean Ecuador(Pitman et al., 2002) estimated 2,000-3,000 plant species for the region, whilethe inventory of the Río Biabo-CordilleraAzul region in Peru (Alverson et al.,2001) was done by the same team withthe same methodology around thesame time and estimated 4,000-6,000plant species for that region.

Does the higher number of taxonomicchanges indicate that Peru has moreactive taxonomic work underway, andthus our knowledge of its flora isbetter? Not necessarily, because thelarger number of taxonomic changesfor Peru’s plants suggests that actuallythe flora was less well known to beginwith, so more work was needed tobring its scientific understanding to thesame level as that of Ecuador’s flora.Thus probably the plant diversityassessments from Ecuador are moretaxonomically reliable because of theapparently better knowledge of theflora.

If Peru may have more plant speciesthan Ecuador does, why are thenumbers of known species similar forboth countries? This indicates in partthat Ecuador is probably betterexplored and known, and also that weare probably much closer to thefrontiers of taxonomy in Peru than inEcuador. The scientific frontier here isthe difference between the highnumber of species that we expect tofind in Peru vs. the lower number ofspecies we have actually found. Thistaxonomic gap, or “taxonomicimpediment”, is a gap in ourknowledge: the plant species we knowabout now and the species yet to bediscovered and named, which do notyet “exist” scientifically.

This taxonomic gap will nevercompletely close, but it will diminish indirect proportion to the amount of timeand effort applied to the study of theplants of both these regions. In themeantime this taxonomic gap must bekept in mind, for both local work andregional comparisons, as a confidencelimit for our knowledge of speciesrichness and biodiversity.

This taxonomic gap exists for alltropical floras, though its size varieswidely between regions. Some on-lineindexes to the publication of new plantnames allow simultaneous searches byyear of publication and country, whichallow comparable estimates to bemade for the rate of taxonomic changein different regions. An example is theWorld Checklist of Selected PlantFamilies of the Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew, England: http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/wcsp/home.do Only selectedfamilies are indexed here, but thisinformation provides a preliminaryestimate of the recent rate oftaxonomic change for a given region.However the information in this type ofindex does not track range extensions,nor indicate the starting level ofknowledge of the regional flora. Thatsort of information depends on detailedtaxonomic tracking of a particular flora,as done by Ulloa et al. (2004) and Ulloa& Neill (2005).

Looking again now from our taxonomicviewpoint at current estimates of speciesrichness, is South America really therichest continent for plant diversity? Wecan now see that this answer depends in

large part on the size of the taxonomicgap in South America vs. that of otherregions. The number of species knownfrom various continents is not greatlycontroversial, but the total estimatedrichness depends also on the expectedrates of discovery for each region, andthose rates are sometimes difficult toestimate accurately. The African flora iswell enough known to confirm thatSouth America is more diverse. Howeverthe level of knowledge of much of theflora of Asia and Oceania is probablylower than that of South America, so thetaxonomic gap cannot even beaccurately estimated until taxonomyadvances in all of these regions.

References

➡Alverson, W. S., L. O. Rodríguez &D. K. Moskovits (eds.), 2001. RapidBiological Inventories: 02: Peru:Biabo Cordillera Azul. The FieldMuseum, Chicago.

➡Brako, L. & J. L. Zarucchi, 1993.Catalogue of the Flowering Plantsand Gymnosperms of Peru. Monogr.Syst. Bot. Missouri Bot. Gard. 45: 1-1286.

➡Jørgensen, P. M. & S. León-Yánez(eds.), 1999. Catalogue of theVascular Plants of Ecuador. Monogr.Syst. Bot. Missouri Bot. Garden 75:1-1181.

➡Pitman, N., D. K. Moskovits, W. S.Alverson & R. Borman A. (eds.),2002. Rapid Biological Inventories:03. Ecuador: Serranías Cofán,Bermejo, Sinangoe. The FieldMuseum, Chicago.

➡Ulloa Ulloa, C., J. L. Zarucchi & B.León, 2004. Diez años de adicionesa la flora del Perú: 1993-2003.Arnaldoa, Ed. Espo.

➡Ulloa Ulloa, C. & D. A. Neill, 2005.Cinco Años de adiciones a la floradel Ecuador, 1999-2004. MissouriBotanical Garden, UniversidadTécnica Particular de Loja, &Funbotánica, Ecuador.

Charlotte M. TaylorPostal address: Missouri BotanicalGarden, P.O. Box 299, St Louis,MO 63166-0299 E-mail: [email protected]: (314) 577 5100Fax: (314) 577 0820


A list of all organisms is a basicnecessity for accessing and organisinginformation about them worldwide -and that list is available now: right?Actually - wrong. Many people areastonished to discover that thetaxonomic profession has nocomprehensive catalogue of all theworld’s organisms, or even of all theworld’s plants. Some ask: “Why can’twe just use the list of names in IndexKewensis?” Extremely valuable as thatresource is, we argue here that IK isnot what is needed by society and thebiodiversity professions as a workinglist of plant species around the world.

The members of Species 2000 and theIntegrated Taxonomic InformationSystem (ITIS) are collaborating tocomplete the Species 2000 and ITISCatalogue of Life by 2011 to meet thisneed.

What kind of catalogue do weneed?

What is needed is a functioning andmaintained species checklist that listsas nearly as possible a consensus viewof all known species. It needs tocombine two extremely importantcomponents that are not trivial todeliver. Firstly, it needs to reflect experttaxonomic opinion as to which distinctspecies exist, and how each iscircumscribed. Where opinions aredivided, a consensus may not bepossible, but then one responsiblychosen view should be given, andaccess provided to alternatives.

Secondly, the checklist also needs toreflect accurately the acceptedscientific name of each species, andthe synonyms, other scientific namesby which the species, or prior speciesnow included in the present concept,have been named in the past or inother catalogues.

Both these requirements are importantfor practical reasons of how thecatalogue can function. The first isdifficult to attain on a global scale, butwithout it a species may accidentallybe in the list twice (under differentnames), or a broadly drawn speciesand its sub-components mayaccidentally be listed alongside eachother. It means that there is just oneentry for each biological species, andthat they can be counted.

The second requirement is importantbecause one of the principal uses ofthe catalogue is for synonymicindexing. As an example, specimensidentified under different names indifferent herbaria or gardens may besamples of the same species. This canbe detected by using the synonymy,which in this case may indicate thattwo of the names are synonyms of thespecies now known by the third name.Conversely, using the synonymy priorto an Internet search may allow a userto search for a species under all of thedifferent names by which it is known.

It is estimated that the world has about1.75 million known and named livingspecies of plants, animals, fungi andmicro-organisms, and that the numberof vascular plants (flowering plants,


The Catalogue of Life: indexing theworld’s species

Authors: Karen L. Wilson and Frank A. Bisby

Right: Grevillea

baileyana

McGilliv., Scrub

Beefwood, is a

tree species in

the family

Proteaceae.

conifers, cycads and ferns) is between223,000 and 420,000 (Scotland andWortley 2003) and bryophytes numberabout 25,000 species. People agreethat reliable, readily available, coreknowledge of the individual speciesthat inhabit this planet is central tounderstanding biodiversity, conservingit, and using it in a sustainable fashion.For example, a working list of allorganisms has been adopted by theUN Convention on Biological Diversityas a target under the Global TaxonomyInitiative (see COP-8 VIII, decision 3),and a working list of all plant specieswas earlier adopted at COP-VI(decision 9) as Target 1 of the GlobalStrategy for Plant Conservation.

Access to all knowledge about aspecies, whether it is a description ofits features, geographical distribution,ecological associations, geneticcomposition, or its usefulness tohumans, can be provided by using thespecies checklist and the synonymicindexing of the scientific names thatprovide unique tags to access thedata.

Why not use vernacular names? Well,there certainly are cases wherevernacular names precisely refer to justone species, and where a species hasjust one vernacular name in onelanguage, but these cases are rare. It isalso true that vernacular names arevery widely used. However, manyspecies have no vernacular name at all.Where they do exist, the samevernacular name may be used forseveral different species, leading toconfusion as to which is meant. Mostorganisations agree that vernacularnames, and the languages and placesin which they are used, do make auseful addition to the species list, but itis clear that scientific names provide abetter basis for the list.

Catalogues of species versuscatalogues of names

There are three main kinds of lists orcatalogues of scientific names oforganisms, often confused by people.

Firstly, there are the nomenclators,which are alphabetical lists of allnames ever published (see exampleBox 1). There are various of theseindexes. For higher plants, this is the

impressive Index Kewensis, initiallyfunded by a donation from CharlesDarwin, and published in hard copy for more than a century. It is now alsoavailable electronically as part of theInternational Plant Name Index (IPNI,www.ipni.org), supplemented by theAustralian Plant Names Index and theGray Card Index, which provide morein-depth coverage of infraspecificnames than Index Kewensis. For fungi,there is Index Fungorum, for bacteriathe List of Prokaryotic Names withStanding in Nomenclature and foranimals there is the Index to OrganismNames.

Secondly, there are global specieslists, in the electronic world referred toas Global Species Databases (GSDs),a term coined by Species 2000. Theseare, or aim to be, taxonomicallyauthoritative lists of all the knownspecies in a group, with any synonymslisted under the relevant acceptednames as a result of revision orscrutiny by one or more taxonomists(see example Box 1). In floweringplants, it is estimated that there are anaverage of three synonyms for eachaccepted name (Scotland and Wortley

2003). It is this expert input thatdifferentiates these global lists fromnomenclators. There are many globallists, often in hard copy or handwrittenon index cards, but increasingly theyare being put together electronicallyand being made available on websitesscattered around the world. Commonlythese lists include more than just thespecies’ names - protologue and typeinformation and geographic distributionare the most common inclusions.

Thirdly, there are regional checklists,which aim to cover all species in aregion. These are often variable interms of taxonomic content andvalidation, but may be rich in extrainformation about the occurrence andvariation of the species in that region.

All these sources of information(electronic and hard copy) aboutorganisms are scattered and, untilrecently, it was difficult for people toreadily find out the names of whateverspecies were of interest to them, or tofind further information about thosespecies. One had to know where tofind the sources of information andthen be knowledgeable enough to


A. Example of entries in a nomenclator, i.e. a simple list of scientificnames and where they were published, without comment on whether thenames are still in general use or are now treated as synonyms

Andropogon dulce Burm. f., Flora Ind.: 219 (1768).

Eleocharis difformis S. T. Blake, Proc. Royal Soc. Queensland 50: 99 (1939).

Eleocharis dulcis (Burm. f.) Trin. ex Henschel, Vita Rumph.: 186 (1883).

Eleocharis ochrostachys Steudel, Synopsis 2: 80 (1855).

Eleocharis tuberosa (Roxb.) Roemer & Schultes, Mantissa 2: 86 (1824).

Eleocharis variegata (Poir.) Presl var. laxiflora (Thwaites) C. B. Clarke, Fl. Brit. India 6: 626 (1893).

Scirpus laxiflorus Thwaites, Enum. Pl. Zeyl.: 435 (1864).

Scirpus tuberosus Roxb., Fl. Ind. 1: 213 (1820).

B. The same names as above, now organised as in an authoritativechecklist of species

Eleocharis dulcis (Burm. f.) Trin. ex HenschelSynonyms: Andropogon dulce Burm. f.

Eleocharis tuberosa (Roxb.) Roemer & SchultesScirpus tuberosus Roxb.

Eleocharis ochrostachys Steud.Synonyms: Eleocharis difformis S.T. Blake

Scirpus laxiflorus ThwaitesEleocharis variegata (Poir.) Presl var. laxiflora (Thwaites) C.B. Clarke

Box 1. The difference between a list of names (A) and a list of species (B)

interpret what was found: for example,did the species named A in country Xrepresent the same species as the onenamed B in country Y? And whatabout the species named C fromanother region of country Y: was it thesame as A and/or B, or a differentspecies?

The last decade has seen a revolutionin this area of research, as in mostothers, with the explosive developmentof e-Science. It is now much easier forbiologists in different regions tocollaborate on research projects,thanks to innovations such as emailand video-conferencing, and aided bythe availability of analytical softwareand electronic images of specimensand publications, increasinglyaccessible on websites. Also, manybiologists have been able to travelmore readily to extend their researchthrough study and fieldwork in relevantparts of the world. Many biologicaldatabase projects have started aroundthe world in this decade, makingavailable electronically informationabout particular groups of plants,animals or micro-organisms (Bisby2000). These Global SpeciesDatabases (GSDs) are key elements inthe Catalogue of Life because theyprovide a comprehensive taxonomicsnapshot of all the species in aparticular group. Regional databasesthat include all the organisms in aparticular region of the world are alsoimportant in adding details not coveredin the GSDs.

The Species 2000 & ITISCatalogue of Life

Numbers of these database projects,spread around the world, arecollaborating to produce a unified,authoritative index of the world’sspecies: the Species 2000 & ITISCatalogue of Life. This is a keystoneknowledge set - the gateway to adigital library of biodiversity informationon the Internet, using species names tolink to other data systems on subjectsas varied as specimen data,agriculture, pharmacognosy andconservation uses. The Catalogue ofLife is available on the web(www.sp2000.org) as a DynamicChecklist, with live access tocontributing databases, and also as anAnnual Checklist, available both on thewebsite and on a CD-ROM (Bisby et al. 2006).

The Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue ofLife is an example of: • a successful approach to managing

complex data in biology• the computational challenges in

managing complex data frommultiple sources

• the sociology of internationalcollaboration between databaseprojects in biology.

The genetic diversity inherent in livingorganisms means that compiling theCatalogue of Life is far from a simpleexercise of listing names (Bisby 2003,Wilson et al. 2005). This is aknowledge-gathering programme,

involving taxonomic expertise ininterpreting species and theirrelationships. The specialist knowledgeneeded to create and continuouslyenhance a global species database fora group is the “tip of an iceberg”,below which lies layer upon layer oftaxonomic processes: from fieldobservation and collections through tomonographic revisions andphylogenetic analysis. Names are themere tags by which this knowledge isaccessed.

Indeed, the key component that marksthe Catalogue of Life as being muchmore than a list of names is the expertinput from taxonomic biologists in allparts of the world to validate thecomplex biological content.Compilation is further complicated bythe fact that understanding ofbiodiversity is still far from adequate,resulting in many scientific names notyet being in a 1:1 relationship withspecies. Much further taxonomicresearch by experts is needed to sortout such problems.

The collaborative input has dictated adistributed model for the Catalogue ofLife. Even though a centralised model ismore efficient computationally, it issociologically very important to keepthe individual data-sets close to thetaxonomists who provide the expertiseto update the species information.Another advantage of the distributedapproach is that the work ofaggregating taxonomic knowledge isgoing ahead in a massively parallel way,rather than in a serial fashion as wouldhappen with a centralised approach.

The success of this distributedapproach is seen in the fact that, since2001, more than 880,000 species havebeen added to the Catalogue of Life:about 50 per cent of the world’s knownspecies (Figure 1). The aim is to add theother 50 per cent by 2011, but thesespecies mostly belong to poorly studiedgroups, especially amongst the insects,and so it will be a major challenge toreach 100 per cent in that time frame.

The Catalogue of Life is alreadyproving useful as an index, eventhough it is not yet complete. Forexample, the Global BiodiversityInformation Facility (GBIF) uses it asthe taxonomic backbone for its web


Figure 1 - Progress with compiling the Catalogue of LifeCurrently, half of all known species (880,000) are included in the Catalogue of LifeAnnual Checklist, drawn from nearly 40 contributing species database projects.The aim is to include all species by June 2011. (Diagram prepared by Yuri Roskov)

0.00

250,000

500,000

750,000

1,000,000

1.250,000

1.500,000

2011200620052004200320022001

users of this species index.Species 2000 began as a jointprogram between theCommittee on Data forScience and Technology(CODATA) of the InternationalCouncil for Science (ICSU), theInternational Union forBiological Sciences (IUBS) andthe International Union ofMicrobiological Societies(IUMS) in the early 1990s,which led to a workshop funded byUNEP and the Global EnvironmentFund in Manila, the Philippines, in 1996.Funding for the Catalogue of Lifecomes from many sources, bothdirectly to Species 2000 and ITIS andindirectly through their contributingmembers, with recent notablecontributions from the European Unionand GBIF. Species 2000 and its regionalgroups actively support all the abovegroups, as well as the Global TaxonomyInitiative (GTI) and other programmes ofthe Convention on Biological Diversity,and the International Working Group onTaxonomic Databases (TDWG).

Progress with the World List ofPlant Species within theCatalogue of Life

Within the Catalogue of Lifeprogramme, Species 2000 is co-operating with the Royal BotanicGardens Kew and other stakeholdersto bring together the taxonomicsectors that will complete the workinglist of plant species for the GSPCTarget 1. A workshop organised jointlybetween them in June 2004 started theprocess of evaluating existing andpotential coverage of all groups offlowering plants in a gap analysis.Botanists from around the world spenttwo days assembling both theirknowledge of ongoing databases andprojects, and of groups of experts whomight be able to assist. Conclusions drawn from examining thecoverage map created included:• Coverage of families: global

checklists were done for 15 per centof spp., in progress for 22 per cent,and in draft stages for 30 per cent.

• Families that were not startedconstitute approx. 33 per cent ofspecies.

• Jointly planned activities of theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew,Missouri Botanical Garden and NewYork Botanical Garden were likely toaccount for some 55 per cent of thetotal, leaving a “gap” of 45 per centthat needs both taxonomicexpertise and co-ordination.

The following priorities were agreed:• The larger missing sectors (thought

to be Compositae (Asteraceae),Melastomataceae and Malvaceae)must be started urgently if there isto be any chance of even nearingcompletion by the 2010 target date.


portal for biodiversity information(www.gbif.net), as do some membersof GBIF for their local databases.

Interaction with other globalprogrammes

Besides interaction with individualtaxonomic experts and databases, theCatalogue of Life interacts strongly witha wide range of international andnational bodies, as both supporters and

Left: Stands of

Casuarina

cunninghamiana

Miq. subsp.

cunninghamiana,

the River She-

oak, fringe the

rivers of eastern

Australia.

Left: Potentilla

neumanniana

Rchb., Spring

cinquefoil, is a

herbaceous

perennial in the

family Rosaceae,

(seen here in the

Aarhus Botanical

Garden,

Denmark).

Left: Botanists

Neil Gibson and

Margaret

Langley

examine

specimens

collected during

a biological

survey.

• For the very many smaller andmiddle-sized families to be startedor brought to completion, it is bothan issue of focusing appropriateexpertise on the task, and providingleadership, co-ordination andfunding to the programme of work.A vigorous co-ordinating process,possibly from Species 2000, theInternational Organization for PlantInformation (IOPI) or the IntegratedTwxonomic Information System(ITIS) is needed for the 45 per centof sectors needed from outside theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew,Missouri Botanical Garden and NewYork Botanical Garden programme.

• The coverage map created at theworkshop should be publicised and developed, working with theSpecies 2000 metadatabase andGBIF to keep track of who is doing what.

Since the 2004 workshop, significantprogress has been made. RBG Kewhas made steady progress withextending its series, World Checklist ofSeed Plants, covering monocots andselected other groups. The messageabout the big gap for Compositae hasbeen picked up by GBIF and it isfunding a major project, which startedin early 2006 and is led by IlseBreitwieser in New Zealand, withpartners in The InternationalCompositae Alliance (TICA) in Europe,

including the Bot. Garten and Bot.Museum Berlin-Dahlem, and in theAmericas, including the MissouriBotanical Garden and the SmithsonianInstitution. In other groups, Species2000 has recently extended thecoverage provided within theCatalogue of Life: as well as theextensive coverage provided by theRBG Kew World Checklist for a rangeof families, the Catalogue of Life nowcovers the algae (AlgaeBase), mosses(Missouri BG), conifers (A. Farjon),Leguminosae (the International LegumeDatabase and Information System -ILDIS), Annonaceae (AnnonBase),Lecythidaceae (New York BG), andcycads and six flowering plant familiesfrom the IOPI Global Plant Checklistand Species Plantarum Programme(www.iopi.org). Regional datasetscoming into the Catalogue of Lifeinclude Euro+Med PlantBase (part ofthe Catalogue of Life RegionalChecklist for Europe) and the NorthAmerican plants from ITIS and thePLANTS databases (Catalogue of LifeRegional Checklist for N. America).

Challenges for the future

There are continuing challenges facingthis project and taxonomy in general.

One is the need to integrate activitiesto avoid duplication of effort and tomake best use of available funding.


Species 2000 is implementing anorganisational architecture that iscapable of both creating a completeCatalogue of Life and maintaining itstaxonomic enhancement through time.At a superficial level, this programme isabout creating databases andcontinuing to maintain them, butunderlying this is a serious proposal forself-organization within the taxonomiccommunity and for rationalising andstructuring taxonomic effort on a globaland regional scale. The result ofcurrent initiatives is an excitingopportunity to generate endorsementand further resources where all effortshave failed in the past.

Another challenge is how to allow usersto choose alternative classifications ofspecies (where they exist) within theCatalogue of Life (Bisby 2003). Moresystematically aware users want to beable to choose which classification theyuse. Others just want a single, generallyaccepted classification that will allowthem to communicate informationabout their species of interest using a

Right: Grevillea

wickhamii

Meisn. has

distinctive bright

orange-red

flowers and

grey, holly-like

leaves. The

nectar of this

and other

Grevillea species

is popular with

native butterflies

such as the

Caper White.

Right: Acacia

stenophylla

A.Cunn. ex

Benth., has

striking seed

pods. It is

widespread near

creeks of inland

Australia.

Right: Cycas

revoluta Thunb.

is native to the

Ryukyu Islands

of southern

Japan and

possibly also to

the Fukien

province of

China.

set of stable, accepted names. Ourdata structure and user interface aim toallow all users to choose whichever ofthe available classifications they preferfor their group of birds or legumes orwhatever.

The overarching challenge globally fortaxonomy is to study and documentthe living species that are not yetknown and named. The GlobalTaxonomic Initiative has emphasizedthe shortage of systematic /taxonomicresources (both people and naturalhistory collections) to document theorganisms of this world beforeextinction strikes. About 1.7 millionspecies of organisms have been givenscientific names, but anywhere from 2to 50 million species or even more (DIVERSITAS 2000; Wilson 2003) arestill not formally described, most ofthem micro-organisms or smallinvertebrates such as insects. Withoutnames as unique tags for species, weare floundering to understand all thewonders of our biodiverse world, letalone to conserve and sustainablymanage them.

References

➡Bisby F. A. 2000. The quietrevolution: Biodiversity informaticsand the Internet. Science 289: 2309-2312.

➡Bisby F. A. 2003. Doing theimpossible: Creating a stablespecies index and operating acommon access system on theInternet. Preprints of theMetadiversity Conference

Proceedings. (National Federation ofScience Abstracting and IndexingServices (NFSAIS): Philadelphia).Also available as of 15 November2006 at http://www.nfais.org/publications/metadiversity_preprints7.htm

➡Bisby F. A., M. A. Ruggiero, Y. R.Roskov, M. Cachuela-Palacio, S. W.Kimani, P. M. Kirk, A. Soulier-Perkinsand J. van Hertum (eds.) 2006.Species 2000 and ITIS Catalogue ofLife 2006 Annual Checklist. CD-ROM and printed booklet (Species2000: Reading). Also available as of15 November 2006 athttp://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2006/search.php

➡DIVERSITAS. 2000. Implementingthe GTI: Recommendations fromDIVERSITAS core programme

element 3, including an assessmentof present knowledge of key speciesgroups. ReportUNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/4/INF6.

➡Scotland R. W. and A. H. Wortley2003. How many species of seedplants are there? Taxon 52: 101-104.

➡Wilson E. O. 2003. Theencyclopedia of life. Trends inEcology and Evolution 18(2): 77-80.

➡Wilson K. L., F. A. Bisby M. A.Ruggiero et al. 2005. Progress withthe Species 2000 and ITISCatalogue of Life. Proceedings of2005 International Workshop onIntegrated Biodiversity and NaturalSpecimens Databases and Forum ofSpecies 2000 Asia-Oceania.Taichung, Taiwan, 30 Sep-2 Oct2005: 9-17.

Karen L. WilsonE-mail: [email protected] address: NationalHerbarium of New South Wales,Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney,NSW 2000 AustraliaTel: +61 2 9231 8111Fax: +61 2 9251 4403

Frank BisbyE-mail: [email protected] address: Plant Diversity andSystematics, School of PlantSciences, University of Reading,Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AS, UKTel: +44 118 378 6437Fax: +44 118 378 8106


Left: The alpine

zone of the

Kosciuszko

National Park in

southeastern

Australia is

home to a wide

diversity of

organisms, but it

is a fragile

environment of

small extent. A

rise of only a few

degrees in the

average

temperature

would have

drastic

consequences

for endemic

species of plants

and animals.

Left: Aroids are

very popular as

potted plants.

This colourful

species grows in

the Fortuna

highland area of

Panama.


Plant Identification: creating user-friendlyfield guides for biodiversity managementReviewed by Helen Pickering

This is a practical book. It provides considerabledetail on how to produce a variety ofidentification guides. Early chapters address themain issues of biodiversity, donors and the needto involve local rural communities as bothproducers and consumers of such tools. Laterchapters provide detailed information on allaspects of creating a field guide; collecting andorganising data, types of illustration, technology,presentation, printing and distribution. Therange of field guides discussed include: printedchecklists, illustrated manuals and laminatedsheets that can easily be carried into the fieldand used under adverse climatic conditions,

The field guides discussed are aimed at anarrow range of stakeholders, working in avariety of botanically related projects, from thetimber and agro-industry to conservation innational parks. For these, it will be extremelyuseful.

Anna Lawrence and William Hawthorne, 2006Earthscan, London, UK, 268 pp.People and Plants Conservation Series,ISBN-10 1-84407-079-4 ISBN-13 978-84407-079-4Earthscan, 8-12 Camden High Street,London NW1 0JH, UKTel: +44 (0)20 7387 8558Fax: +44 (0)20 7387 8998E-mail: [email protected]: www.earthscan.co.uk

Plant systematics: a phylogenetic approach(second edition)

This is an introductory text that incorporatesphylogenetic principles and methodsthroughout. Orders and families arerecircumscribed to represent monophyleticgroups, largely following the most recentclassification of the Angiosperm PhylogenyGroup. The sources of taxonomic evidence arediscussed, including morphology, anatomy,embryology, chromosomes, palynology,secondary plant compounds, proteins andDNA. Molecular taxonomic methods are fullypresented, and throughout the book referenceis made to the results of recent studies, bothmolecular and morphological. A chapter on thehistory of plant classification puts currentsystematic methods in a historical context.Issues relating to variation in plant populationsand species, including discussion of speciation,species concepts, polyploidy, hybridization,

breeding systems and introgression arecarefully considered. Botanical nomenclatureand field and herbarium methods are discussedin two appendices.

The text is illustrated using analytical drawings,many of which have been developed as part ofthe Generic Flora of the Southeastern UnitedStates project. The book is accompanied by aCD-ROM containing over 2,200 colourphotographs illustrating the diagnosticcharacters of (and variability within) the vascularplant families covered in the text, includingmany images showing floral and fruitdissections. The text assumes no prerequisitesother than introductory botany or biology.

Walter S. Judd, Christopher S. Campbell,Elizabeth A. Kellogg, Peter F. Stevens andMichael J. Donoghue, 2002.Sinauer Asscociates Inc., USA, 576 pp.ISBN 0-87893-403-0, (Hardback) $94.95(approx £61.99/$121).Sinauer Associates, Inc., 23 Plumtree RoadP.O. Box 407, Sunderland, MA 01375-0407,USA, Tel: +1 (413) 549-4300,Fax: +1 (413) 549-1118,E-mail: [email protected],Internet: http://www.sinauer.com.

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, or APG

The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, or APG,refers to an international group of systematicbotanists who came together to try to establisha consensus view of the taxonomy of floweringplants that would reflect new knowledge inangiosperm relationships. The results fromthese collaborations were largely attempts todeal with the deficiencies in prior angiospermclassifications as seen by phylogenetic theoriesbased on analysis of DNA.

The rapid increase in knowledge has led to manyproposed changes in classifications, and thesepose problems for all users of classifications. Bybringing together researchers from majorinstitutions worldwide, and publishing jointly, theAPG have sought to provide a stable point ofreference. This system deals mostly with higherranks and, as there are still severe limits to ourknowledge, a firm classification is not possible inall cases. This made angiosperms the first largegroup of organisms to be systematicallyreclassified largely on the basis of molecularcharacteristics (APG 2003).

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2003). Anupdate of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Groupclassification for the orders and families of

flowering plants: APG II. Botanical Journal ofthe Linnean Society 141: 399-436 [Availableonline: Full text (HTML) http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1095-8339.2003.t01-1-00158.x/full/ | Full text (PDF)http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1095-8339.2003.t01-1-00158.x/pdf].

Angiosperm Phylogeny WebsiteStevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Version 7, May2006 [http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb]

Taxonomy and plant conservation: thecornerstone of conservation and thesustainable use of plants

This book was reviewed in the last issue ofBGjournal. It has many useful papers on thepractice of taxonomy and how it is necessaryfor conservation. It has several chapters whichdirectly address the gap between planttaxonomy as a science (where molecularapproaches are becoming ever more importantand debates rage about cladistics) and use ofthe products of that science by practitioners inother disciplines, who need usability andstability in the names that can be applied toparticular organisms.

Etelka Leadlay and Stephen Jury, 2006.Cambridge University Press, UK, 300 pp.ISBN 978-0-521-60720-9 (Paperback) £35.00,ISBN 978-0-52-84506-9 (Hardback) £70.00.Cambridge University Press, The EdinburghBuilding, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK, Tel: +44 (0) 1223 326050, Fax: +44 (0) 1223 326111,E-mail: [email protected], Internet: www.cambridge.org

The secret life of trees

Although this is a popular book exploring theway trees work, what they are, and how theycame to exist, it has an extremely good chaptercalled ‘Keeping track’ which describesidentification and why it is difficult which wouldbe very helpful for the layman and teacher.

Colin Tudge, 2005.Allen Lane, UK, 320 pp.ISBN: 0713996986 (Hardback) £20.00 (approx.$39/€30); Penguin, UK, 452 pp. ISBN: 0141012935 (Paperback) 2006 £8.99 (approx. $18/€14)Allen Lane, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL,Penguin, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL

Book notices and taxonomic resources


Order out of chaos: Linnaean plant namesand their types

This 1,200-page book is a welcome addition tothe botanical literature, bringing together as itdoes all the known published information aboutLinnaean type specimens and publishing for thefirst time a significant number of newlydesignated types. To quote from the book’sForeword by Peter Raven of Missouri BotanicalGarden, “For conserving plant species,understanding them, and working with them inany way, the stability of names to which thisvolume makes such a singular contribution is anabsolute necessity.”

For 25 years the Linnaean Plant NameTypification Project, based at the Natural HistoryMuseum, London, has been gatheringinformation on Linnaean types, in other wordsthe botanical specimens or illustrations that fixthe permanent usage of the names coined byLinnaeus in the 18th century. Hundreds ofbotanists around the world have been consultedin the process of assessing existing typedesignations and making definitive choices oftype. Valuable to taxonomists and scholarsworldwide, this handsomely illustrated book ispublished in Linnaeus’ Tercentenary year.Publication May 2007 (pre-publication discountavailable).

Charlie Jarvis, 2007.The Linnean Society of London and the NaturalHistory Museum, UK, 1,200 pp.Linnean Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly,London W1J 0BF, UK,Tel: +44 (0) 20 7434 4479Fax: +44 (0) 20 7287 9364E-mail: [email protected]: www.linnean.orgThe Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road,South Kensington SW7 5BD, UK,Tel: +44 (0) 20 7942 5000Internet: www.nhm.ac.uk

Systematic collections

Order or systematic beds displaying living plantsin taxonomic groups have been a part ofbotanical gardens since, or almost sinceinception. There is an extremely informativearticle on order beds by Dr. David Frodin on theChelsea Physic garden website (www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/garden/docs/orderbeds.doc).

The Botanical Gardens of France and French-speaking Countries (Jardins Botaniques deFrance et des pays francophones - JBF) held aworkshop on systematic collections at theirrecent workshop in Montpellier in May, 2006.The programme and presentations can befound at http://www.bgci.org/jbf-fr/Programme/.

Reconstructing the Tree of Life: Taxonomyand Systematics of Species Rich Taxa

Of relevance to both systematic andevolutionary biologists, Reconstructing the Treeof Life: Taxonomy and Systematics of Species-Rich Taxa draws from taxonomy andphylogenetics to provide both a systematicsand evolutionary biology perspective. Detailing

14 September Royal Horticultural Society in associationwith the Linnean Society. “Linnaeus and theIconotype”.

1-2 October Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts &Science. “Linnaeus 300 - the future of hisScience”. International symposium organisedby the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts &Science in collaboration with the LinneanSociety of London and the Embassy ofSweden in the Netherlands.

18 October Meeting at the Linnean Society. Lord (Robert)May speaks on “People, Parasites andPoverty”.

31 October -1 November The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. “Orchid evolutionary biology andconservation - from Linnaeus to the 21stcentury”. A celebration of the culmination ofthe Orchid Classification Project.

22-23 November Joint meeting of the Linnean Society and theInstitution of Mechanical Engineers. “ColourDesign and Engineering: Colour in plants andanimals - inspiration for design”.

For up-to-date information on events,exhibitions and meetings in the tercentenaryyear, see www.linnean.org andwww.linnaeus2007.se.

If you are organising a relevant event, pleasecontact the Linnean Society for it to beincluded in the list of events.

Linnaean celebrations2007

Scientific Meetings

20 February Meeting at the Linnean Society. Sir DavidKing speaks on climate change.

16-17 April Festschrift at the Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew. “Plant Genome Horizons - Vistas andVisions”.

23 April Joint meeting of the Linnean Society andthe Geological Society. “Dark energy andthe history of chemosynthetic life in thedeep sea”.

A meeting to celebrate the 300thanniversary of the birth of Linnaeus, theBicentenary of the Geological Society, theInternational Year of Planet Earth and the30th anniversary of the discovery of deepsea hydrothermal vents.

8 May Joint meeting of the Linnean Society andthe Zoological Society. “A Celebration ofthe Tercentenary of the Birth of CarlLinnaeus”. Discussion meeting organisedby Dr Vaughan Southgate. Speakersinclude Professor Charles Godfray, Dr Sandy Knapp, Dr Andrew Polaszek andDr Tim Littlewood.

11-23 June Uppsala University. “Unlocking the Past -Linnaean collections past, present andfuture”. Meeting beginning in London (11-12 June), continuing in Uppsala (14-15),finishing in Gotland (17-23 June).

a broad range of organisms, the text addressesthe task of reconstructing and making best useof the tree of life. Featuring the contributions ofleading experts, who examine recent progressand consider future developments, it alsodiscusses global diversity issues and thetaxonomic problems of dealing with large andspecies-rich taxa. The book is divided intothree parts: introduction and general concepts,reconstructing and using the tree of life, andtaxonomy and systematics of species-richgroups (case studies). It introduces, withexamples, the concept of species-rich groupsand discusses their importance inreconstructing the tree of life as well as theirconservation and sustainable utilization ingeneral. The book highlights how phylogenetictrees are becoming “supersized” to handlespecies-rich groups and the methods that are

being developed to deal with the computationalcomplexity of such trees. It discusses factorsthat have led some groups to speciate to astaggering degree and also provides casestudies that highlight the problems andprospects of dealing with species-rich groupsin taxonomy.

Edited by Trevor R. Hodkinson and John A.N.Parnell. December 2006. CRC Press, 360 pp.; Systematics Association Special Volumes -Volume: 72ISBN 0849395798; Cat No. 9579. (hardback)£68.99 (approx. $135/€103). CRC Press UK, 24 Blades Court, Deodar Road,London, SW15 2NU, UK. Tel: +44-(0)20 7017 6000Fax: +44-(0)20 7017 6747 www.crcpress.co.uk


Formal Board Resolution or other form of approval Please Tickfrom relevant governing bodies (e.g. universityauthorities, local, regional or national government

Informal E.g. by Director/Senior staff.

International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in ConservationRegistration Form

Please register your contributions to the International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation

Name of Institution

Name of responsibleperson

Position

Date ofRegistration

Date

Address

Type of Registration

BGCI would welcome copies of any formal resolution, motion or other form of endorsement.

Declaration

This institution welcomes the International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation as a global framework for thedevelopment of institutional policies and programmes in plant conservation for botanic gardens.

Without imposing any obligations or restrictions (legal or otherwise) on the policies or activities of thisinstitution/organisation, we commit ourselves to working to achieve the objectives and targets of the International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation.

Please sign and detach this registration form and send it to The Secretary General, Botanic Gardens ConservationInternational, Descanso House, 199 Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3BW, U.K.

Thank you for registering with the International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation.

Please keep a duplicate copy of this form for your records.

Email

Signed

BGjournal • Vol 3 (1) • 14-18 3

The mission of BGCI is to mobilisebotanic gardens and engagepartners in securing plant diversityfor the well-being of people and theplanet. It was founded in 1987 andnow includes over 525 memberinstitutions in 115 countries.

Institutions can join BGCI for the following benefits:• Membership of the worldwide plant conservation network • Botanic Garden Management Resource Pack (upon joining)*• Regular publications:

- the regular newsletter, Cuttings- BGjournal – an international journal for botanic gardens (2 per year)- Roots - environmental education review (2 per year)- A wide range of new publications

• Invitations to BGCI congresses and discounts on registration fees • BGCI technical support and advisory services

• Regular publications:- the regular newsletter, Cuttings- BGjournal - an international journal for botanic gardens (2 per year)- Roots - Environmental Education Review (2 per year)

• Invitations to BGCI congress and discounts on registration fees

G Corporate Gold Member (BGjournal, Roots and Cuttings plus more) 5000 8000 7500H Corporate Silver Member (BGjournal, Roots and Cuttings plus more) 1000 1600 1500

J Conservation donor (BGjournal, Roots and Cuttings plus more) 250 450 420K Associate member (Cuttings and BGjournal) 35 60 50L Associate member (Cuttings and Roots) 35 60 50M Friend (Cuttings) available through online subscription only (www.bgci.org) 10 15 15

Institution Membership £ Stlg US $ € Euros

Corporate Membership £ Stlg US $ € Euros

Individual Membership £ Stlg US $ € Euros

How to join Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Other Membership Categories:

Membership benefits depend oncategory - see below. These caninclude:

*Contents of the Botanic Garden Management Resource Pack: The Darwin Technical Manual for Botanic Gardens, A Handbook for Botanic Gardens on the Reintroduction ofPlants to the Wild, BGjournal - an international journal for botanic gardens (2 past issues), Roots - environmental education review (2 past issues), The International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation, Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, Environmental Education in Botanic Gardens, BG-Recorder (a computer software package for plant records).

A BGCI Patron Institution 5000 8000 7500 B Institution member (budget more than US$2,250,000) 600 1000 940C Institution member (budget US$ 1,500,000 - 2,250,000) 440 720 660 D Institution member (budget US$ 750,000 - 1,500,000) 300 500 440E Institution member (budget US$ 100,000 - 750,000) 160 250 220F Institution member (budget below US$100,000)* 75 120 110

*Generally applies to institutions in less developed countries

Payment may be made by cheque payable to Botanic Gardens Conservation International,or online at www.bgci.org or by VISA/Mastercardsent to BGCI, Descanso House, 199 Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3BW, U.K or Fax: +44 (0) 20 8332 5956.

❑ I wish to apply for membership of Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

E-mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Internet site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Membership category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Annual rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VISA/Mastercard number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Credit card expiry date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Print name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

❑ I would like to make a donation to BGCI. Amount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Please clearly state your name (or the name of your institution) on all documentation. Please contact [email protected] for further information.

Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Descanso House, 199 Kew Road,Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3BW, U.K.

Tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5953 Fax: +44 (0)20 8332 5956E-mail: [email protected]: www.bgci.org

This publication issupported throughInvesting in NatureA partnership betweenBGCI, Earthwatch,HSBC and WWFand the RuffordMaurice LaingFoundation

Printed on 100% recycled paper ISSN 1811-8712

journal of botanic gardens conservation international 4_1.pdf · taxonomy and plant conservation...

Documents