Search

Kalheber, H.: Bavarian plant collectors in Greece — 1. Franz Xaver Berger, Franz Zuccarini and Carl Nikolaus Fraas. — Willdenowia 36 (Special Issue): 565–578. — ISSN 0511-9618: © 2006 BGBM Berlin-Dahlem. doi:10.3372/wi.36.36153 (available via http://dx.doi.org/) Short biographies are presented of three Bavarian plant collectors in Greece. Franz Xaver Berger (1806–1834), a catholic priest, and Franz Zuccarini (1799?–1833), the brother of the Munich Professor Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini, came to Greece with King Otho in 1833. Both died in Nauplia. The third, Carl Nikolaus Fraas (1810–1875), came to Athens in 1835, evolved in Greece from a pure plant systematist to an economic botanist, and returned to Munich in 1841, where he became later Director of the Royal Central School of Veterinary Medicine and Professor at the University.

A solar chimney power plant consists of a translucent collector which heats the air near the ground and guides it into the base of a chimney at its centre. The buoyant air rises in the chimney and electricity is generated through one or more turbines in or near the base of the chimney. Various studies about solar chimney power plant performance have been published. Different calculation approaches with a variety of considerations have been applied to calculate chimney power plant performance. In particular, two comprehensive studies are relevant, namely those of (Bernardes, M.A.d. S., Vos, A., Weinrebe, G., 2003. Thermal and technical analyses of solar chimneys. Solar Energy 75, 511–524; Pretorius, J.P., Kroger, D.G., 2006b. Solar chimney power plant performance. Transactions of the ASME 128, 302–311). The paper compares the methods used to calculate the heat fluxes in the collector, and their effects on solar chimney performance. Reasons for the discrepancies between the predictions of the two models are given. In general the Pretorius model produces higher heat transfer coefficients and higher heat rate fluxes for both the roof and for the ground surfaces. The two approaches lead to very similar air temperature rises in the collector and thus, similar produced power.

The Flora of Tropical East Africa, covering Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, was one of the largest regional floras ever compiled, with over 12,000 wild plant species and taking 64 years to complete. The East African Plant Collectors is the perfect supplement to this great flora and is a wonderful compendium of botanists, collectors and authors showing the human element of the flora - the people behind the herbarium specimens, the new species and combinations and the flora treatments. This book includes around 2,700 collectors that have collected herbarium specimens in the region arranged alphabetically. Each individual entry includes biographical data, including nationality, dates of birth and death, travels, publications, eponymy, publications and it lists the herbaria where specimens were deposited. The level of detail varies considerably from collector to collector with some briefly treated, whilst others are very detailed. For example, Bernard Verdcourt’s entry is lengthy and includes location details of his 30 years of fieldwork, publication details of the flora treatments he compiled (a remarkable one-fifth of the flora...) and even an anecdote about meeting a lion on Ndi Hill!

The earliest site anywhere in the world for agriculture appears to be Jericho in the Near East, and dating from about 10000 years ago. It was the subject of a classic study by Kenyon (1978). If that were indeed the earliest site, a problem which surfaces automatically is the relation of other sites to it. Are they derivative or themselves of independent origin? The further the distance from Jericho, the greater the likelihood of independence — completely so with the earliest sites in the New World. For China one might be less certain. Indeed, if it were shown that the earliest sites there preceded Jericho, the problem of dependence or not is not removed but merely reversed. On balance, the most realistic starting point might be that the original migrations of Homo sapiens out of Africa preceded by many millennia the cultural changes which led to agriculture. Relatively small, widely dispersed hunter-gatherer populations would have a life style and life expectancy dominated by the short term. Settlement, population increase, some degree of social control and sophistication would have to be in place for one human group to interact significantly with another. Until, therefore, compelling evidence emerged to the contrary, one might propose China as a third independent centre of origin for agriculture. Bray (1984) regards 7000 years B.P. as realistic for the start of agriculture in China with perhaps separate traditions for the north and south.

In contrast to the European botanists who named plant material sent by collectors in the colonies, little is known about the collectors themselves. The botanists gave little information about them in their correspondence and often the letters from the collectors disappeared. Besides, collecting was a kind of hobby to them and not the main reason for their stay in the Colonies. With the help of botanical literature and official archives it is possible to retrace some of their activities. This article examines four of the plant collectors mentioned in N. L. Burman's Flora Indica (1768). They are Christiaan Kleynhoff, Franciscus Albertus Pryon, Hendrik Otto van Oudgaarden and Henricus van Santen. Linnaeus based a number of plant species on their material.

Cyclopaedia p. xxiii-xxix add: F. de Lahaie, see C. A. G. RICHE. C. A. G. Riche and F. de Lahaie, naturalists of the voyage in ‘La Recherche’ and ‘L’Espdrance’ in search of La Pdrouse, 1791-1794, collected in Mauritius and Reunion. Part of the plants have erroneously been labelled ‘Java’.

Collections de W. Moorcroft (1765-1825), V. Jacquemont (1800-1832), G. T. Vigne (1801-1863), K. A. A. von Huegel (1795-1870), J. M. Honigberger (1795-?), T. Thomson (1817-1878), les freres Schlagintweit (19 s.).

As long ago as 1926-27, during my last two years at Utrecht University, when studying the taxonomy and distribution of the Malaysian Bignoniaceae (Thesis 1927), I felt the need for a reference work in localizing inadequately labelled specimens. Material collected in the 19th century, especially that of BLUME, KORTHALS, JUNGHUHN, ZIPELIUS,¹ MOTLEY, HORSFIELD, etc. bear scant notes. Either these collectors did not realize the future value of full data or their notes were not mounted on the sheets in the herbarium and were often subsequently lost. I have also observed a tendency in some authors of tropical plant species in that period to underrate the importance of the locality because of their belief that tropical plants occurred everywhere in the tropics, i.e. were ubiquitous in the plant-geographical sense. Sometimes the collectors were natives accompanying expeditions, who did not make notes, e.g. JAHERI, ACHMAD, etc. Hence, it is often very difficult to trace the exact origin of specimens. KORTHALS’S plants, for example, are mostly labelled merely: ‘Borneo’. This botanist, however, described the parts of Borneo in which he collected and an extensive printed record of his travels is in existence.

HENDERSON, M. R., Malayan Wild Flowers. 1. Dicotyledons (Mal.Nat.J. 4, 1949, p. 1-181; ibid. 6, 1950, p. 182-399; ibid. 1952, p. fig. 1-424); 2. Monocotyledons. Kuala Lumpur (1954) p. 1-357, fig. 1-201. Line-drawings of selected herbaceous plants from Malaya.

Cyclopaedia p. xxiii-xxix add: F. de Lahaie, see C. A. G. RICHE. C. A. G. Riche and F. de Lahaie, naturalists of the voyage in ‘La Recherche’ and ‘L’Espdrance’ in search of La Pdrouse, 1791-1794, collected in Mauritius and Reunion. Part of the plants have erroneously been labelled ‘Java’.

HENDERSON, M. R., Malayan Wild Flowers. 1. Dicotyledons (Mal.Nat.J. 4, 1949, p. 1-181; ibid. 6, 1950, p. 182-399; ibid. 1952, p. fig. 1-424); 2. Monocotyledons. Kuala Lumpur (1954) p. 1-357, fig. 1-201. Line-drawings of selected herbaceous plants from Malaya.

As long ago as 1926-27, during my last two years at Utrecht University, when studying the taxonomy and distribution of the Malaysian Bignoniaceae (Thesis 1927), I felt the need for a reference work in localizing inadequately labelled specimens. Material collected in the 19th century, especially that of BLUME, KORTHALS, JUNGHUHN, ZIPELIUS,¹ MOTLEY, HORSFIELD, etc. bear scant notes. Either these collectors did not realize the future value of full data or their notes were not mounted on the sheets in the herbarium and were often subsequently lost. I have also observed a tendency in some authors of tropical plant species in that period to underrate the importance of the locality because of their belief that tropical plants occurred everywhere in the tropics, i.e. were ubiquitous in the plant-geographical sense. Sometimes the collectors were natives accompanying expeditions, who did not make notes, e.g. JAHERI, ACHMAD, etc. Hence, it is often very difficult to trace the exact origin of specimens. KORTHALS’S plants, for example, are mostly labelled merely: ‘Borneo’. This botanist, however, described the parts of Borneo in which he collected and an extensive printed record of his travels is in existence.

A solar chimney power plant consists of a translucent collector which heats the air near the ground and guides it into the base of a chimney at its centre. The buoyant air rises in the chimney, and electricity is generated through one or more turbines in or near the base of the chimney. Two comprehensive studies are relevant, namely those of [6] and [2].

A list of plant collectors of any area is of historical interest; but the custom among plant monographers of citing each plant specimen by its collector and collecion numberl makes it especially desirable to have available lists of such collectors. There has never been such a list prepared for Texas and with the increased interest in the Texas flora, such a list seems desirable. Many herbarium specimens carry only a surname or initials and often the full name can be obtained, if at all, only by the chance encounter of one sheet carrying the full name among many which do not.

The itinerary of W. H. Camp and his assistants in Ecuador has been reconstructed from fieldbooks deposited in the archives of the library at The New York Botanical Garden. The visited localities are listed according to collection numbers, an alphabetical list of the localities with geographical coordinates or best approximation is provided, and a map is presented showing the area where most numbers were collected.