I Annotated Selected Bibliography
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Annotated selected bibliography page page 1. General botanical handbooks v 6. Flora of Malaysia proper xm 2. General and local botanical bibliographies. v a. General works xra 3. Interpretation of early botanical works . VI b. Local works xv 4. vil taxonomic Keys for identifying Malaysian plants. c. Proper bibliography, alpha- 5. Floras and botanical enumerations of betically arranged according to families xxv neighbouring countries vm In the absence of a complete bibliography of the botanical literature of Malaysia, comparable to those on Eastern Asia and the Pacific by MERRILL & WALKER, and as the ‘Flora Malesiana’ will not to be completed within the near future, the need was felt to have at hand a concise, selected bibliography of existing revisions and other phytographical publications temporarily providing taxonomists with a reference to what is roughly available for the identification of Malaysiancollections. When the‘FloraMalesiana’is completed, after some decades, this bibliog- contained in it will all have raphy should no longer be required, as the references been account- in the Flora in ed for itself one way or another. In the meantime, however, a list arranged by families seems to serve a very practical purpose, it the the final revisions as gives access to main body of accumulated knowledge precursory to in the Flora. of this which This need is apparently felt in other regions, as during the course work, was started about 1943, similar projects were undertaken for East Asia and the Pacific by MERRILL & WALKER and for India by SANTAPAU. I agree with Dr WALKER that the use ofsuch bibliographies is essentially facilitated by anno- tations indicating the contents. I have specially paid attention to the presence or absence of In I keys for identification. some cases keys lead only to groups of species; have called these 'partial keys'. MERRILL & WALKER'S bibliographiesaimed at completeness. My object has been more limited and from the beginning I wanted to make it selective for two reasons. On the one hand an exhaustive bibliography would mean years of bibliographical research on which I cannot On afford to spendpart of the little time left for my scientific work. the other hand my aim was more limited in that I felt that the need alluded to was focussed rather on a bibliographic guide, enabling rapid orientationin some family or genus, than on a complete bibliographic account. references The desired concise data would be swamped in an ocean of detailed in a really ex- haustive work. The large detailed MS bibliography, which I have gradually compiled during the past twenty five years, is arranged by families and is not suitable for publication; but it will always be at the disposal of revisors working at the Flora Malesiana. in order The selection has proved very difficultand was often arbitrary to obtain a satisfactory the various uniform bibliographical level, as the scope and quality of papers and their impor- tance for our aim varies enormously. It cannot be denied that, through this selection, a subjective element inevitably enters in. not with have certain value in Many papers are, unfortunately, provided keys; still, they a efforts towards naming collections. Many papers are not exhaustive, treating representatives island. Other of a family or genus from a local region or even part of an papers were prepared without aiming at a thorough revision. A taxonomistwill, however, be glad to have some litera- ture at hand for naming current collections. It is for that aim that the present tool has been forged. the Floras It was, ofcourse, not necessary to give extrac's from greatcomplete and taxonomic- al handbooks, as these are commonly the recognized tools of the systematist. I Introduction Flora Malesiana [ser. I, vol. 5 1 The bibliography tends to go from the large and wide to the small and narrow, as can be observed from the table of contents. In chapter 6c families have been arranged alphabetically. It should be borne in mind that the choice of the delimitationof these families is arbitrary. Newly proposed changes have been followed with some conservatism. It has not been found of very great advantage to take up all the segregates which have been proposed in recent times. in Lately there has been a distinct fad towards splitting families, genera, species, many in- the which the stances resulting into raising taxa to next higher rank, a tendencyagainst Makers On the other if it of Botany of the last century were always warning us. hand, appears that a family contains entirely discordant elements which, in accordance with additional detailed research into pollen structure, embryology, phytochemistry, anatomy, etc., fit in different places in the system of affinities, such a splitting seems entirely justified. If, however, there is only a difference of opinion about the rank of certain groups, which after segregation merely remain with the mutual there to in a differentrank (level), but about same relationship, seems be very littlescientific advance gainedby this splitting. It seems to me that the recent splitting of Magno- liaceae into several families and raising the complex to the order Magnoliales belongs to this category, as well as similar cases in Olacaceae, Sapotaceae, Icacinaceae, Monimiaceae, Cornaceae, Annocaceae, etc. The case of the anomalous genera Sphenocleaand Pentaphragma now removed from the be removed Campanulaceae seems to me to of another category, since these genera are fromthe orderto which the family Campanulaceaebelongs. I am perfectly aware that some fami- anomalous and that in such the situation is clarified lies contain definitely genera cases really by the removal ofsuch genera. If the Siphonodontaceaestill remain in position next to the Celastra- ceaethere is little scientific gain in raising it to family rank, as the rank of a subfamily would be If in AIRY SHAW has sufficient to stress its distinction within the Celastraceae. Oleaceae, found good arguments in favour of removing Nyctanthes from this family to the Verbenaceae, I assume this to be ofsignificant value. in this with Purely for technical reasons Bambusaceae have, bibliography, not been merged Gramineae. Gramineae proper but are separately treated on a family level immediately after the Amaryllidaceae, Liliaceae, etc. have only for convenience been accepted in their old delimi- artificial in its and tation which is, as HUTCHINSON has demonstrated, certainly simplicity taxonomically untenable. For the same aim Conifers are treated as an entity, though by general consent they consist of Moraceae Ficus has account of its many families. In the the genus been treated separately on colossal size. Saurauia has also been treated separately within the Actinidiaceae. For the convenience of those using this bibliography cross-references have been made for have referred than family names and for generic names in so far as they been to more one family. The choice of the references is not wholly uniform. In general the larger works and Floras have not been classified under families, but in several cases the user will find that I have for instance cited one ofBACKER'S works on the Java flora. This means that either this treatment is significant for the group in Malaysia or perhaps even comprehensive; from a large experience in using literature for rapid orientation I have intentionally inserted such entries, which at first dealt with in and sight seem superfluous, since they belong to general books chapters 5 6a. I was in doubt whether to insert entries for those families which have already been treated in this Flora and would seem, for this reason, now superfluous; it is merely for completeness and I others. uniformity that have treated such families in the same way as the Families cultivated introduced known to in ofwhich only or species are occur Malaysia, as etc. treated in less detail e.g. Betulaceae, Bromeliaceae, Caricaceae, Tropaeolaceae, are as com- pared with families possessing mainly native representatives. Althoughthe 'Flora Malesiana'is principally concerned withnative and wild plants, it appeared useful to insert references to revisions of ornamentalplants or those cultivated for other reasons. Concerning the Philippines and New Guinea I have been rather lavish with references and I these islands. hope this will be a help for those who have to identify specimens from II March 1955] Bibliography Introduction Those who consult 6c should bear in mind that it embraces books chapter only and papers which I assume to be of interest to Malaysian botany! When genera are of worldwide distribu- tion, like many in the Scrophulariaceae, I found it necessary to insert also major works on the New World representatives. In the Araceae, Lauraceae, Loranthaceae,etc., however, I have omit- ted several important papers revising only African or New World representatives. In families like the Podostemonaceae in which the number of Malaysian representatives is negligeablewith respect to the total size of the family, only some ofthe main works have been to mentionedjust as far as necessary understand the taxonomy of the Malaysian members. Papers in which only a few genera have been revised are not mentioned under the family DE but have been entered under the respective genera. Comprehensive family monographs as CANDOLLE'S MonographiaPhanerogamarum and the Pflanzenreichhave not been cited under various In treated latter which consist of the genera. some large families in the work, a number of parts, names of Malaysian genera have been mentioned as an annotation. No reference has been made in chapter 6c to the first edition ofthe 'Pflanzenfamilien', since that work is complete and is provided with indices, but reference has been made to the families No treated in the incomplete 2nd edition. annotations seemed necessary for the 'Pflanzen- familien' and the 'Pflanzenreich' entries as the scope ofthese works is well known. There in are very many articles, reports, and even books, which plant names are mentioned in the text but do not occur as official lists (with or withoutreferences).