Suchergebnisse

The first overview is presented of the paper contents of Kew's Economic Botany Collections (EBC). There are more than 350 specimens of paper representing nearly 50 plant families and more than a hundred genera. The dominant families numerically – and each for different reasons – are the Moraceae, Gramineae, Thymelaeaceae and Cyperaceae, examples from which are highlighted. Some emphasis is given to the historical context and geographical origin of papers, and to the people who collected or donated them. It is suggested that one focus of a future collecting strategy for the EBC should be the sorts of plant products, including papers, that are under threat due to losses of cultural diversity or biological diversity, or both.

The first overview is presented of the paper contents of Kew's Economic Botany Collections (EBC). There are more than 350 specimens of paper representing nearly 50 plant families and more than a hundred genera. The dominant families numerically – and each for different reasons – are the Moraceae, Gramineae, Thymelaeaceae and Cyperaceae, examples from which are highlighted. Some emphasis is given to the historical context and geographical origin of papers, and to the people who collected or donated them. It is suggested that one focus of a future collecting strategy for the EBC should be the sorts of plant products, including papers, that are under threat due to losses of cultural diversity or biological diversity, or both.

This article explores the Spanish crown's efforts to study, cultivate, and transplant
spices from the East Indies to the West Indies and then to Spain in the sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries. Beginning with Christopher Columbus's first observations
of New World flora, the Spanish crown sought out spices to cultivate for economic
gain. Although they were ultimately unsuccessful in efforts to generate a large-scale
spice trade, colonial officials and local entrepreneurs participated in a coordinated program
of empirical information gathering and botanical experimentation that is itself of
historical significance. For the empirical and experimental—"scientific"—methods
they represented serve to challenge and enhance current understanding of several historiographical
themes: the origins of economic botany and the Scientific Revolution
more generally, the role of human agency in the Columbian exchange, and the dissemination
of knowledge from imperial centers to colonial peripheries.

Plants for Food and Medicine: Proceedings of the Joint Conference of the Society for Economic Botany and the International Society for Ethnopharmacology. H. D. V. Prendergast. N. L. Etkin. D. R. Harris. and P. J. Houghton. eds. Kew, Richmond, UK: Scientific Publications Dept., Royal Botanic Gardens, 1998. 438 pp.

Buchanan arrived in India in 1794 and left in 1815. He was employed by the East India Company for these twenty years in a number of capacities but he is chiefly remembered today for two surveys he conducted: the first of Mysore in 1800 and the second of Bengal in 1807–14. These surveys have long been used by historians, anthropologists and Indian politicians to depict the nature of Indian society in the early years of British rule. Recently economic historians, Bagchi in particular, have used the 'statistical' tables compiled by Buchanan as a data base against which later statistical evidence about the Indian economy is measured. Bagchi believes that by doing this he can furnish firm proof of the extent to which British rule was detrimental to the people of India in the nineteenth century.

Book reviewed in this article:PRACTICAL WOODY PLANT PROPAGATION FOR nursery growers. Bruce Macdonald. 669 pp., 496 text plates as well as text diagrams. B.T. Batsford Ltd., London. 1986.DICTIONARY OF PLANT NAMES. Allen J. Coombes. 207 pp. Collingridge Books, Felt‐ham. 1985.the lilies of china. Stephen G. Haw. 152 pp., 20 line illustrations, 1 map, 1 table showing distribution, 9 colour plates. B.T. Batsford Ltd., London. 1986.notes on economic botany of china. Facsimile Reprint. Augustine Henry. Introduction by E.C. Nelson, xv + 68 pp. Boethius Press, Kilkenny. 1986.