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Taxonomy is fundamentally a descriptive and highly documented science. Its literature is voluminous and constitutes so vital a part of its structure that, irrespective of whether the problem is one of identification of an unknown plant, solution of a nomenclatural puzzle, or a monographic or floristic study, acquaintanceship must be made with the more important publications of the subject.
Every developed and civilized nation has had taxonomists, and this literature may be found in many languages. There is at present a tendency to write in one of the leading languages such as English, German, Russian and of course some literature, especially original descriptions, is still written in Latin. Even so, taxonomy is truly international in its character, hence its studies involve the use of many different languages.
According to Porter (1967) “Taxonomic literature runs the gamut from ponderous volumes to obscure notes in periodicals and even letters of correspondence between workers”.
Taxonomic literature have always occupied a prominent position in botanical literature, the classification of which is difficult task. An attempt will be made here to supply representative examples of the subject.
Classics:
The works which have been profoundly influenced the development of plant taxonomy and regarded as landmarks in the history of Botany are called Classics. They include the works of Theophrastus, Pliny, Dioscorides, Albertus Magnus, Brunfels, Cesalpino, the Bauhins, Ray, Tournefort and Linnaeus.
Although they exerted a powerful influence in their day, these books are principally of value from the historical standpoint.
Taxonomic Indexes:
The taxonomic indexes are indexes of plant names and not to literature concerning the plants. Indexes serve as an aid to locating quickly the source of original publication of a name, to learn if a particular name has been applied to a plant or to what order, family, subfamily or tribe, a plant of a given name may belong.
These indexes are the nucleus of any significant taxonomic library, and it is incumbent on the student of taxonomy to know of their availability and importance e.g. Index Kewensis plantarum phanerogam arum.
Floras:
A flora is a systematic arrangement of the species of a given area or a particular region, usually restricted to a major segment of the plant kingdom (flowering plants etc.), with keys and descriptions and often illustrations, by the use of which a student may determine the names and characteristics of the wild plants of the area, A flora covers a country, a section of a country, a state, a valley, a desert, or a vicinity of a city.
The student of taxonomy should be familiar with the floras covering his own region and some rare important floras covering other regions. In the regional floras, the student finds the available details of the plant life of his immediate environment.
In any flora the plants are arranged according to one or another of the available systems (Engler, Bessey, Hutchinson, etc.), giving for each plant the complete scientific name, author citation, reference to source of original publication, synonomy, and geographic distribution within the area in question.
There is no single world flora that accounts for every species, on the earth. The herbarium material on which to base, such, a flora does not exist. The so-called world floras (e.g., Bentham and Hooker’s Genera plantarum, Engler and Prantl’s Die naturalichen Pflanzenfamilien), for the most part, do not treat units below the category of genus, and some of them do not account for units below the category of family.
Any one engaged in taxonomic work, is called or frequently to identify plants, and when these are unknown indigenous plants, they are identified usually by the aid of a manual or flora of the area. Knowledge of the more important floras is invaluable to the traveller interested in the plants of an area.
Monographs and Revisions:
A monograph is a treatise including all significant information of a morphologic or taxonomic nature covering the group such as family or genus.
A taxonomic monograph is a comprehensive treatise representing an analysis and synthesis of existing taxonomic knowledge of that taxon, plus the results of original research of that in systematics. In other words, it is “as complete an account as can be made at a given time of any one family, tribe, or genus, ‘nothing being neglected which is necessary for a perfect knowledge of it.”
The usual subject of a taxonomic monograph is the genus or the family. All elements of the treatise are accounted for by dichotomous keys, full synonymies, complete descriptions, precise designations of types, together with notes as to where the types are deposited, citations of specimens examined, distributional ranges (supplemented by maps of the same), notes on habitats, and discussions of taxonomic and nomenclatorial considerations as may be appropriate.
A taxonomic revision differs from a monograph primarily in degree of scope and completeness. Often it accounts for only a section of a genus or for the elements as restricted to a continent or smaller geographical area. Many revisions make no attempt to review all previous work on the taxon or to take cognizance of the interrelated sciences of cytotaxonomy, genetics, ecology, etc.
A revision may be based only on herbarium studies, where as monograph should cover the morphology, anatomy, cytology, genetics and ecology.
Catalogues:
Catalogues account for the books of special libraries rich in botanical titles, and are of especial value in taxonomic studies. It is often necessary to know the full name of a particular author, to know the unabridged and exact title of a work, to know when it was published, or when a particular edition was issued. These data are usually available from such catalogues.
Review Serials:
Review serials are periodicals, usually issued at regular intervals, that provide either:
(1) A bibliography of current literature of a particular subject,
(2) An abstract of papers or books in special fields,
(3) Reviews of titles of current literature, or
(4) Any combination of these functions.
In evaluating their treatments it is well to remember that an abstract is a brief factual summary of a paper, frequently prepared by its author, whereas a review is an often critical appraisal and evaluation of the paper, and is by a person other than the original author.
Periodical:
A periodical, is a publication appearing usually at regular intervals. Each issue is called a number, or sometimes is termed a fascicle. Collectively these numbers or fascicles comprise a volume. In the case of periodicals appearing at regular intervals – biweekly, monthly, or quarterly- a volume usually comprises the issues of a calendar year.
Scientific periodicals usually are sponsored either by a scientific organization, such as a learned society, or an educational or non-profit research institution, such as a university or museum. Serial may appear at regular or irregular intervals.
A society may publish a monthly serial to provide a source of publication for a variety of relatively short papers contributed by its members, together with records of its own proceedings. Such a periodical is usually entitled Journal, Anal, Bulletin, or Proceeding.
The same society also may publish at much less frequent intervals another serial to account for longer and more monumental works, often by a single author, such as monographs of floras. These are often entitled Memoirs or Transactions. The titles of some periodicals are long, and inciting them it is customary to abbreviate or condense them. Unfortunately, there is no uniformity of practice.
The number of botanical serials is so great that probably no library contains complete sets of them all.
When a local library does not have a desired serial, or a particular volume of a serial, it is necessary:
(1) To borrow that volume,
(2) To visit a library known to possess it, or
(3) To obtain a photographic copy such as microfilm or photostat.
Dictionaries and Glossaries:
Dictionaries and glossaries from the nucleus of taxonomic literature. Dictionaries and glossaries are invaluable in a subject matter with so large a vocabulary as that of Botany. A botanical dictionary may list and describe all known genera of certain plant groups e.g. A Dictionary of Flowering, Plants and Ferns by J. C. Willis. A glossary is an alphabetical list of difficult terms with their interpretations.
Almost all modern manuals, and many floras, include a glossary of the botanical terms employed. Several comprehensive and nearly all-inclusive glossaries have been published as separate works of definitive character.
Most of the data available in botanical dictionaries are to be found nowhere else, least of all in the usual unabridged dictionaries of common use. Most botanical dictionaries are of plant names and are sources for the etymology of Latin or vernacular names, for biographical data of persons for whom plants have been named, and for vernacular names in various languages.
Legislation:
Since 1867 botanists have met somewhat regularly at the international level and agreed upon legislation in plant names. These rules and regulations are contained in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (I.C.B.N.). They are subject to revision at each Botanical Congress and a new edition is then prepared.
Maps and Cartography:
This subject may seem remote or apart from that of the rest of the text; however, the taxonomic botanist knows the need of:
(1) An understanding of maps, the various projections, and the uses for which they were designed,
(2) The kinds of maps available as sources of supplementary information, and
(3) Of the availability and sources of maps that treat any area of investigation.
Soil maps and geological maps are equally important in any detailed floristic or monographic research. These maps show type of soil profile.
Aerial photographs are not strictly classifiable as maps but they may be used in taxonomic research as valued adjuncts to maps of various types.
Icones:
Icone is the perfect, natural diagram or picture of plant. A picture can convey the minds eye a quicker perfection than words. It gives a clean idea at a instance to non-students of botany who are eagerly devoted in plant uses e.g. Ayurveda students, general public interested in medical uses of plants, nature lovers etc. without botanical background.
Icones are full elucidation, namely of the distinctive characters of the natural plants order, as explained in the descriptive protein of the work. In this the properties and uses of plants, are mentioned as meriting attention on account of properties, they are known to possess, but of whose forms, the name communicates no definite ideas, and one can just form a conception of their fitness for the purposes indicated.
In these sufficient acquaintance with the plants named, that is to be able to recognise these even when laid before. The non-botanical readers have no other means of acquiring knowledge then through the oral communication of natives, whose acquaintance with the plants indicated, being entirely traditional without any guide to direct them always to the same plant is often as likely to be wrong or right.
This is no imaginary statement it is one, the truth of which have seen and verified in a thousand instances, another, and not the least important lineation, the plants meant by the author, and at the same time, to establish the Native names, of at least so many of an indigenous plants, on the firm basis, by combining them with the representation of the objects named.
Such a work still retains an important deaideratum to all classes of community.
In Icones there is the great advantage of pictures in conveying to the mind’s eye a quicker perception than words can do, of the distinctive peculiarities of an unknown plant. At a single instance the analytical details of plants apart from general habit are accomplished. The Icones cenvey precise, definite idea and almost accurate picture while a botanist describe these with a laxity of terms.
In description of plants by professional Botanist the number objects of study are so great, they are, even in the present advanced state of science, quite indispensible, especially to the young botanist.
In Icones an intimate acquaintance with a few species only of an order, will even a young Botanist rapidly to acquire a competent knowledge of the rest.
The Icones are indispensable to the student of botany to study the system (systematic) botany, since by seeing several species of an order arranged together and put in contrast with those of some other order, student may acquire such an idea of the appearance of a group although he may not be able to explain it to others, as will made a strong impression on himself and prove eminently useful in advancing his own researches and in preparing his mind for entering on the more abstract and sub-time parts of the study.
Icones familiarises student with the appearance of groups of indigenous plants by furnishing correct figures of numerous species of the order.
Icone acts as a ready reckoner of plant species of that area or region or part or state or country.
Classical Literature:
Linnaeus, C. 1753. Species Planturum, 2 volts. First volume was published in May 1753 and second volume in August 1753. The system of binomial nomenclature was first adopted in this work and it is therefore accepted as strating point for application of the ‘Rule of Priority’ in nomenclature of flowering plants and pteridophytes.
De Candolle, A.P., A and C. 1824-73. Prodromus Systematis Naturalist Regni Vegetabilis. 17 volumes, Paris, France only dicotyledonous plants.
De Candolle, A& C. de candolle. 1879-91. Monographiae Phanerogamarum. 7 Volumes, Paris, France.
Bentham, G. & J.D. Hookder. 1862-1883. Genera Plantarum, 3 volumes, London, U.K.
The families and genera are arranged according to Bentham and Hooker’s system of classification, in many important world herbaria, including Kew Herbarium and almost all India herbaria.
Genera Siphanogamarum, 1900-1907, Berlin, Germany.
This book was edited by C.G. Dalla Tore and H. Harms and includes names of families and genera of spermatophytes. The genera are arranged according to Engler’s system of classification and bear numbers 1 (Cycas) to 9629 (Thamnoseris). In some herbaria these numbers are used for arranging the specimens.
Engler A. & K. Prantl 1887-1960. Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien. 23 volumes, Leipzig, Germany.
Englier, A. & L. Diels, 1936. Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien, 11th ed. berlin, Germany. Some herbaria in the world, particularly in Europe, are arranged according to this system.
Pflanzeneich:
Engler, A 1900-1937. Das Pflanzenreich. regni Vegetablis Conspectus. Lepzig, Germany. This work has monographs on many families and genera.
Wallichian Catalogue:
It is a list of 9148 plants collected during Nathaniel Willich’s superintendence of Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta. 1828 to 1829 at East India Company’s Museum in London. It lists not only Wallich’s own collections, but also plants collected by B.’ Heyne, P. Rusell, W. Roxburgh, R. Wight, etc.
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