Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: Cgull49 on January 09, 2018, 05:47:35 PM

Title: What's the best place to look to find the discoverer of a plant species
Post by: Cgull49 on January 09, 2018, 05:47:35 PM: Hi all,

I'm putting together a presentation on Rock Gardening and I wanted to provide the names of a number of iconic plant explorers and the species they discovered. However, I'm finding it difficult. As an example, I thought I had determined that George Forrest had discovered Gentiana sino-ornata but on the Scottish Plant Explorers Garden web site it indicates that George Sherriff introduced Gentiana sino-ornata. I'm assuming that if both pieces of information are correct then the introduced is different than the discovered. In the meantime I'm not sure where to look to see what new species George Sherriff or any of the other plant explorers discovered.

When I look at the International Plant Name Index it does provide me with the name of the author who recorded the species for a particular herbarium but that is not necessarily the name of the plant explorer who discovered the species.

I realize there may be no simple answer but thought that someone may have done some research on this topic and may be able to provide me with either some specific information or a general direction.

As part of my presentation I was planning on listing 5-6 recognized species for each explorer and I was intending on including: Père David, Père Delavay, George Forrest, EH Wilson, George Sherriff and Frank Kingdon-Ward. However, I may have to reduce the number of explorers included if I can't find some of the species they discovered.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Rob
Title: Re: What's the best place to look to find the discoverer of a plant species
Post by: GordonT on January 09, 2018, 06:25:31 PM: Rob, if you haven't checked it out already, you might find some useful information at https://www.plantexplorers.com/index.html (https://www.plantexplorers.com/index.html)
There are specific pages dedicated to each of the men you are researching.
Title: Re: What's the best place to look to find the discoverer of a plant species
Post by: majallison on January 09, 2018, 07:03:59 PM: If you could get hold of a copy, Seamus O'Brien's 'In the footsteps of Augustine Henry & his Chinese plant collectors' is not only a wonderful book, but it would also have a lot of the information you seek
Title: Re: What's the best place to look to find the discoverer of a plant species
Post by: Maggi Young on January 09, 2018, 08:12:57 PM: Quote from: majallison on January 09, 2018, 07:03:59 PM
If you could get hold of a copy, Seamus O'Brien's 'In the footsteps of Augustine Henry & his Chinese plant collectors' is not only a wonderful book, but it would also have a lot of the information you seek

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Footsteps-Augustine-Henry-Seamus-OBrien/dp/1870673735/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515528740&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Seamus+O%27Brien+%27In+the+footsteps+of+Augustine+Henry+%26+his+Chinese+plant+collectors%27 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Footsteps-Augustine-Henry-Seamus-OBrien/dp/1870673735/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515528740&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Seamus+O%27Brien+%27In+the+footsteps+of+Augustine+Henry+%26+his+Chinese+plant+collectors%27)
Title: Re: What's the best place to look to find the discoverer of a plant species
Post by: Cgull49 on January 09, 2018, 08:52:23 PM: Thanks for the recommendation of Seamus O'Brien's book. I do have a copy but hadn't looked at it in a while and didn't realize that there is an Appendix with a list of many of the species he discovered.