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Cultivated Plant TaxonomyNS EW Issue 2 ■ June 2014 Culture and taxonomy: new tools for a new understanding James Armitage EDITOR As Chairman of Hortax, one of the things I am enthusiastic to impress on people is the cultural importance of cultivated plants. When they have undergone a process of selection or breeding, plants become examples of living history, forever connected to customs, fashions, events, places and people. In time they can even take on a symbolic significance in folklore, myth and legend. Above, clockwise. Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’, seen through first-century Pompeian, I was particularly struck by these ideas nineteenth-century Belgian, and twentieth-century English eyes. when visiting China last July to attend the Sixth International Symposium on her thoughts on the Symposium and PHOTOS ( the Taxonomy of Cultivated Plants in analyses the development of these Hortax on CLOCKWISE Beijing. As a European, I had not before conferences over time. In the second, had the opportunity to meet so many Camellia expert Twitter Jennifer Trehane ). Asian researchers, and I came away discusses how taxonomic information Hortax is now social STEFANO with the strong impression that the can be lost in translation when plants networking! The cultural relevance of the plants they are moved around the globe. Hortax Twitter feed BOLOGNINI were investigating was an important offers links to ; ; factor in their work. I hope their Also in this edition, Mike Grant news and RHS , , message that taxonomic study is a makes the case for The Plantsman observations LINDLEY tool that can be used to examine the as a place to publish horticultural from the LIBRARY heritage that plants represent will come taxonomy and Penny Maplestone world of ; ; to be understood more widely. draws attention to the importance cultivated plants. TIM of taxonomic testing in bringing new Follow us on SANDALL In this issue of CPT News we feature crop varieties to market. ■ @cptaxo two articles that I hope will emphasise . the links between researchers in the ► CPT News is circulated free of charge all over the world to East and West and the common institutions, libraries and individuals with an interest in cultivated plant challenges that face them in the taxonomy, and is a great way of publicising your work. If you would future. In the first of these Zhang Lu, a like to write an article for CPT News, please contact James Armitage delegate and speaker in Beijing, offers ([email protected]). HORTAX HORTICULTURAL TAXONOMY GROUP CPT News ■ For more information contact News in brief [email protected] New banana checklist New ISTA list A checklist of banana cultivar names The 6th edition of the has been made available online ISTA List of Stabilized through Bioversity International. Plant Names has Hosted on the ProMusa website (www. been published by promusa.org/Banana+cultivar+checklist), the Nomenclature it is hoped that it will one day provide Committee of the a complete listing with comprehensive International Seed synonymy. Cultivars are listed with Testing Association. their local name and location, the The List is available Group into which they are classified on the ISTA website and additional notes with some links and a new web page to images and further information on for searching this the Musapedia pages. Edible banana nomenclature has cultivar nomenclature is complicated now been created on by the plethora of local names the GRIN website with applied to them and the checklist is versions in French, an important preliminary to further German, Portuguese, work. Rhiannon Crichton of Bioversity and Spanish in explains, “We hope that the existence addition to English. of the checklist will stimulate renewed The Nomenclature activity in banana cultivar description, Committee now classification, understanding of the aims to produce a spatial distribution of cultivar diversity, multilingual glossary harmonising in situ and ex situ ‘Ruhuvia Chichi’, a pink-fleshed banana of common names for germplasm collections and much else.” cultivar. Photo. Gabriel Sachter-Smith. crop plants. New edition of the Hillier Manual published The eighth edition of The Hillier and taxonomy in the Manual withTHE MANUAL OF Manual of Trees and Shrubs is now that of RHS Plant Finder,” said RHS & Shrubs Trees available. This is the first update Botanist Dawn Edwards. “This will since 2002 and the first edition that hopefully do much to provide a has been published by the Royal robust andThe durable classic horticultural set guide, of revised names & updated for Revised and fully updated with horticultural notes compiled by Hillier Nurseries and botanists from the Royal Horticultural Society, this new edition Horticultural Society and edited woody plants incontains gardens.” over 13,000 plants representing The work more than 700 genera. Reissued in the 150th anniversary year of Hillier by the Society’s botanists. Besides was done in closeNurseries, The collaborationHillier Manual of Trees & Shrubs not with only remains an enduring tribute to the late Sir Harold Hillier, but continues to be an erudite source THE its concise descriptions of plants consultant editorsof reference for everyRoy horticulturist Lancasterand gardener. MANUAL OF and supplementary information and John Hillier and includes 1,500 Trees& regarding cultivation, introduction new entries, bringing the total Shrubs dates and notable specimens, to over 13,000.£19.99 Interesting new the book is also an authoritative entries include Xanthocyparis REVISED & UPDATED WITH 1500 NEW PLANTS taxonomic reference. “We are vietnamensis, only described in particularly pleased to have been 2002, and a number of beautiful able to harmonise the nomenclature bamboos of the genus Borinda. 2 ■ June 2014 Orchid Register classification was previously now in line based, are sometimes Work begins on unreliable as indicators of online vegetable with Genera genetic affinity. database Orchidacearum Updating the Register has The International Register been a massive project for Work is under way at Science and of Orchid Hybrids has the Registrar, Julian Shaw, Advice for Scottish Agriculture been updated in line with who has had to create (SASA) on an online database the forthcoming sixth and numerous new hybrid of cereal and vegetable crops. final volume of Genera genera. “Well over 1,000 new The database will focus on plants Orchidacearum (GO). GO is hybrid genera have been for which SASA has statutory the output of an international erected to accommodate the responsibility and will provide variety research group working GO system,” reports Julian. descriptions and information on on the classification of pedigree and disease resistance. It orchids and is widely used Below. Watercolour on vellum will be similar in form to the existing by the orchid community of Vanilla planifolia flowers by European Cultivated Potato Database worldwide. It is the first Claude Aubriet, c. 1700. Identified (www.europotato.org). rigorously tested molecularly as Vanilla flore viridi et albo by the based classification of artist. Photo. RHS, Lindley Library. the whole family New Zealand cultivar and shows that pollination database under syndromes, on construction which the Murray Dawson of the New Zealand Plant Collection Register Project is overseeing the creation of a database of cultivar names of New Zealand plants with full bibliographic references. Although not yet available online there is an ambition to integrate it with the database of New Zealand plant names maintained by Landcare Research (http://nzflora. landcareresearch.co.nz/default.aspx). Nursery catalogues digitised Scanned versions of 6,122 seed and nursery catalogues have been made available through the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/search. php? query=collection%3Ausda- nurseryandseedcatalog). The catalogues are from the US National Agricultural Library’s collection and can be downloaded as well as searched. HORTAX 3 HORTICULTURAL TAXONOMY GROUP CPT News ■ For more information contact Hortax news [email protected] New plant Lost Names Project taxonomist The Lost Names Project is a directory collaborative effort to bring to light the wealth of inaccessible It is hoped the Hortax taxonomic information that waits website will soon host a to be uncovered in early gardening directory of individuals with literature. an interest in cultivated plant taxonomy. The first initiative undertaken as part of the Project is to provide a cumulative The area would provide a index to Gardeners’ Chronicle. This means of sharing work and journal was first published in 1841 information and facilitate and ran for more than a century collaboration. The directory before merging into Horticulture entries would be edited by Week in the 1980s. It is a periodical the individuals featured and, of immense value to the study of besides listing biographical cultivated plants, being the first place information and publications, of publication of the names of a great could contain external links number of garden plants as well as and highlight particular wild taxa. As it is hoped to include all areas of interest. If you are subjects indexed, not just plant names, interested in setting up Above. Sequoiadendron the project should also be of great a personal page on the giganteum, first published as service to garden historians and other Hortax website please email Wellingtonia gigantea in the historical researchers. [email protected] Gardeners’ Chronicle in 1853. At present ten libraries are contributing to the project, but Hortax European mini-conference in 2015 is keen to recruit the help of other libraries, institutions or It is hoped RHS Garden the headings individuals. If you or your Wisley will be the venue Research, institution would for a planned gathering of Cataloguing like to take part European cultivated plant the please email taxonomists hosted by Diversity hortaxgroup@ Hortax in spring 2015. of gmail.com Cultivated There would be no Plants in Left. The Gardeners’ registration costs and food Europe, and Chronicle was founded PHOTOS and refreshments would Registration in 1841, and continued . be provided. The theme of and Databases.
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