Cultivated Plant Taxonomy News 6
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cultivated plant taxonomynews Issue 6 ■ September 2018 Ceci n’est pas une plante A floristics for the 21st century HORTAX CULTIVATED PLANT TAXONOMY GROUP CPT News ■ Cultivated plant floristics: a highly necessary study James Armitage holistic studies of organisms in a still have a responsibility to EDITOR defined environment. provide the taxonomic data required by their users. Cultivated plant floristics has The importance of this distinction existed as a special branch of is that it has created a false If it is shocking how little regard is floristic study for nearly a century, separation, in environmental paid to taxonomy in general, it is since the publication in 1924 of terms, between plants that have equally shocking how little regard L H Bailey’s Manual of the most arrived of their own accord and is paid by wild plant taxonomists common or significant species of those that have been planted. to the highly necessary study plants grown in the continental The artificiality of this conceptual of cultivated plants. In the United States and Canada. The division comes most sharply developed world the greatest gap concept of the Horticultural into focus when considering remaining in botanical knowledge or Garden Flora is now well urban ecosystems. Here, the is of plants in cultivation. Given recognised and some large and farcical situation arises of the field impressive examples, often botanist who records a native running to several volumes, have species (whatever that The farcical situation been produced for various parts may mean in an entirely arises of the field botanist of the world, including Europe, manmade environment) seeded Hawaii, south-eastern Australia, into a crack in the pavement but who records a native South Africa and Spain. These in doing so ignores thousands species seeded into a works are extraordinary efforts of tons of respiring, functional in cataloguing and classification biomass, providing habitat for crack in the pavement often achieved by only a handful who knows how many other ‘but ignores thousands of individuals operating with very living things, simply because it of tons of respiring limited resources. was planted. For the practical purposes of understanding urban functional biomass simply It might be assumed that Garden environments, the “rules” by because it was planted. Floras are straightforward which field botanists operate are equivalents of those far more simply unhelpful. numerous Floras dealing with wild that the majority of the world’s plants, but this isn’t quite the case. Taxonomy of all sorts is taken population now live in urban Garden Floras usually contain for granted to an extraordinary zones, it is simply astonishing how keys and descriptions, taxonomic degree. Without the framework little we know of the plants that assessment and synonymy for reference and communication dominate towns and cities. but some other elements are it provides all further biological generally absent. Ecological investigation is impossible. With A change in the culture and considerations are either missing justification might taxonomists perceptions of botanists will not or replaced with cultivation feel they are unappreciated occur overnight but I hope this advice or a hardiness rating and by their fellow scientists who special edition of CPT News will there is usually no assessment seldom make the effort to be seen as a call to action. There of abundance or range. This has understand the discipline upon is so much that can be done now tended to cast Garden Floras which their own lines of enquiry to define, develop and provide as checklists with associated depend. But undervalued as infrastructure to the emerging identification guides rather than taxonomy may be, taxonomists discipline of urban floristics and 2 ■ September 2018 the study of cultivated plants in general. As with so many things, technology has made it possible to tackle subjects which would have been insurmountable even two decades ago. The vast store of information we have amassed about cultivated plants, in journals, books, nursery catalogues, herbaria, registers and so on, hitherto extremely dispersed and to most people largely inaccessible, can now be digitised and brought before the world. With an organised and collective effort so much is possible. How about a web- based portal to access digitised nursery catalogues? or an online herbarium of urban plants? or a database to plot records of cultivated plants and display their global distribution? In the coming years image recognition software is likely to advance to such a state that an army of citizen scientists armed only with an iPhone and a sense of curiosity about their surroundings will be able to provide more data on cultivated plants than can presently be processed or understood. I suggest that an International Conference on Urban Floristsics is required to assess resources, identify priorities and set targets. I hope the articles that follow will offer some idea of what the taxonomic study of cultivated Cover. Doronicum × plants can produce, why the What is cultivated plant excelsum ‘Harpur Crewe’. work is so necessary and, with RHS / Adam Duckworth. collaboration and effort, what floristics? Above. RHS / Julian might be achieved in the future. ■ The identification and Weigall. enumeration of the cultivated Membership of Hortax is entirely plants of a given area free of charge. If you would like to become a member please contact hortaxgroup@gmail.com HORTAX 3 CULTIVATED PLANT TAXONOMY GROUP CPT News ■ Global cultivated plant floristics Roger Spencer is Horticultural Taxonomist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and chief editor of the Horticultural Flora of South- eastern Australia (now online). With Rob Cross he is an author of the CSIRO publications Sustainable Gardens and Plant Names. T IS EASY to forget how Britain has revealed that during Plantarum (1686, 1688, 1704) rapidly and dramatically the this period there was a rapid lists some 18,700 different kinds. world’s natural landscape introduction of about 50 new Carl Linnaeus, Europe’s most has changed over the last plants, mostly Mediterranean renowned naturalist of the I200 or so years, and how fruits, herbs, spices, and eighteenth century, in his entire so much of this change vegetables that Romans career assembled the names of emanated from Enlightenment imported to improve the bland about 7,700 species of flowering Western Europe – most flavours and limited nutrient plants. In 1753, less than 40 years notably imperial Britain. content of the local foods. It is before Australian settlement, he Global landscape change a telling quirk of history, and believed that the total number has come about through globalisation, that of these 50 of plant species in the world was the human redistribution of Roman-introduced plant species unlikely to exceed 10,000. plants by means of agriculture, about 36 (over 70%) are now forestry and horticulture. naturalised in Australia – a stark Though this was essentially indication of the subsequent guesswork, some more extensive Plant redistribution is a function cultural diffusion of plants across data was soon available. Imperial of culture. Aboriginals have the planet. Britain achieved a major step occupied Australia for about towards a world flora through 65,000 years, arriving on the One consequence of Western a census of wild plants growing continent more than 10,000 science’s concern for stocktaking in its colonies and described in years before modern humans has been the desire for an Floras of North America (Hooker migrated into northern Europe. inventory of the world’s wild 1829–1840), Antarctica (Hooker We do not have a single plants. At the time of the Roman 1844–1847), New Zealand confirmed record of Aboriginal Empire, about 1,350 different (Hooker 1852–1855), Tasmania plant introduction from outside plants had been recorded in (Hooker 1855–1859), West Indies Australia. the West. By 1613 an attempt (Grisebach 1859–1864), Sri Lanka by Frenchman Jean Bauhin (Ceylon; Thwaites & Hooker Apart from a few crop plants, to calculate the total number 1858–1864), Cape of South Africa it seems that the first major of plants in the world put the (Harvey, Sonder & W. Thistleton- influx of exotic (foreign) plants figure at about 4,000, his son Dyer 1859–1933), Hong Kong to Britain occurred during its Gaspard increasing this number (Bentham 1861), Australia occupation by Roman garrisons of published species to 6,000 (Bentham & Mueller 1863–1878) between about 45 and 410 in 1623. English botanist John and British India (Hooker 1872– CE. Archaeological research in Ray’s three-volume Historia 1897). Today the total number of 4 ■ September 2018 botanically described seed plants nineteenth century, plant is our collective environmental in the world is estimated to be taxonomy blossomed, the responsibility as we shake off the about 400,000 and the Global nursery trade gathered history of nations and empires Strategy for Plant Conservation momentum, the number of on our way to a common future through the World Flora Online known plant species in the world and a shared fate. Project has set itself the target rocketed. At the same time of compiling a widely accessible cultivated plant redistribution As horticulturists we share an began in earnest, as European enthusiasm for ornamental arable land grabs occurred in plants, for the “beautiful, curious North and South America, Africa, and new”. This fascination goes Australia and elsewhere. The back to the time of the early improved transport