1,722,531 research outputs found
Retypification of the name Eryngium palmatum (Apiaceae)
No full textKuzmanović, Nevena, Clementi, Moreno, Kabaš, Eva, Vukojičić, Snežana (2013): Retypification of the name Eryngium palmatum (Apiaceae). Phytotaxa 105 (2): 58-60, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.105.2.5, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.105.2.
Typification of five names listed by Roberto de Visiani in Plantarum Serbicarum Pemptas
No full textClementi, Moreno, Kuzmanović, Nevena, Barina, Zoltan, Lakušić, Dmitar, Vukojičić, Snežana (2014): Typification of five names listed by Roberto de Visiani in Plantarum Serbicarum Pemptas. Phytotaxa 170 (1): 57-60, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.170.1.9, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.170.1.
A Cross-disciplinary Study of the Work and Collections by Roberto de Visiani (1800-1878)
Full text linkBotanists need access to historical collections of dried plants (herbaria) in order to precisely clarify the identity of taxa described by authors of the past. These studies involve the formal process of typifcation, prescribed by the Code of nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, which requires the actual specimens originally used for the descriptions to be identified and designated as types, so to permanently atach them to their scientifc name, and serve as absolute reference.
With over 600 newly described taxa and almost 1,000 newly established names, Roberto de Visiani (Šibenik 1800 - Padova 1878), was one of the most important scholars to direct the Botanical Garden of Padova, a position he held from 1837 to his death. During this time, he transformed it from a mere tool for the teaching of medicine to a modern institution open to the community. He was the author of numerous important works of taxonomy, mostly focussed on the vascular flora of his homeland, Dalmatia. After his death, he left in Padova not only a large collection of about 12,000 specimens, but also thousands of leters he received, manuscripts, and other unpublished material, which have remained almost entirely unstudied, despite his having lived, worked, and left a mark during one of the most defining times for the Garden itself, the University, and the scientific community at large.
In the study of the work of 19th century botanists, scientific, historical, and geographical issues are intimately intertwined, but have rarely been considered together, with the widely cross-disciplinary, author- and collection-centric approach that we argue is the best means to solve questions of historical botany. To verify and showcase its efficacy, we set the following goals: 1) to correctly identify and formally designate type material in Visiani's collections, reconstructing the history of botanical explorations in the western Balkans, and his network of relationships and exchanges; 2) to analyse Visiani's work and to reconstruct his scientific standing at the national and international level; 3) to add value to Visiani's collections and archive by making them more accessible to the public.
A large amount of diverse materials has been used. One very important source of in formation has been Visiani's Herbarium Dalmaticum, conserved in Padova and we catalogued in 2011-2013. All of Visiani's published works on foristics have been collected and studied, and are analysed in great detail, with special attention dedicated to his masterpiece Flora Dalmatica, and to the four smaller publications he co-authored with Serbian professor Josif Pančić. A more general overview is given for his contributions to other fields. All of Visiani's unpublished material available at the Ancient Library of the Botanical Garden has been digitised and organised. Over a third of the more than 2,000 letters that are conserved in his correspondence have been transcribed. We have also retrieved and transcribed the letters he sent to his best friend, famous lichenologist and palaeobotanist Abramo Massalongo, conserved at the Civic Library of Verona, and those sent to botanist Josif Pančić, conserved at the Botanical Institute of Belgrade. Beyond letters, other unpublished documents, particularly lists of plants, manuscripts for both published and unpublished works, and the rare travel diaries have been analysed.
The study of these materials has led to the publication of seven scientifc papers, with forty-one type designations in total, plus detailed notes for seventeen other names. A draf treatment of the 275 names newly published in Flora Dalmatica is presented. Publication will require the input of a Croatian taxonomist. Two other papers in preparation are presented.
The data from the herbarium and Visiani's published works have been integrated in a geodatabase managed through QGIS, which allows to investigate them through powerful querying. This instrument is used to produce maps to accompany the detailed chronology of the botanical exploration of Dalmatia and neighbouring regions during Visiani's lifetime that has been put together from all the different sources, as well as to check the correspondence between the herbarium and the published records.
Visiani's network of relations and exchanges is clarified, with a discussion on his assistants, gardeners, colleagues, friends, co-authors, and the many plant collectors that provided him with specimens, many of whom were minor figures about whom little to nothing was known from literature. Particularly interesting are the role played by Antonio Bertoloni at the start of Visiani's career, the contribution by Muzio Tommasini to the publication of Flora Dalmatica, Visiani's troubled relationship with its editor Friedrich Hofmeister, and his the very close friendship with Massalongo.
Visiani's scientific ideas are discussed in detail. Visiani had a positivistic view of science, and considered experimentation the main road to knowledge; he was not influenced by romantic ideas as many other botanists were at the time. His approach to systematic botany was typical of the first half of the 19th century: he focussed on the careful description of species and the exploration of a regional flora, and was always a strenuous defender of Linnaean practice, for which he was sometimes criticised late in his life. His methods and ideas arguably influenced the school of botany in Padova up to the mid 20th century. While we confirm Visiani's opposition to the unripe pre-Darwinian evolutionary hypotheses, we argue he was not a dogmatic fixist, and pose he may even have converted to evolutionism late in his life. His concepts, methods, and choices in taxonomy and nomenclature, whose understanding is crucial for the typifcation of his names, are clarified and described in detail.
A detailed personal biography of Visiani is presented, dealing with topics such as his origins, studies, professional life, travels, character, religion, political ideas, material legacy. As for his stance towards the process of unification of Italy, his position is discovered to have been cautiously anti-Austrian. We argue this may be explained partly with his own ambiguous national identity, and partly with his prioritising the safety of his academic position. Visiani's work as director of the Botanical Garden is reconstructed largely thanks to the analysis of unpublished materials. We detail expenses, works, the growth of living and non-living collections, and his efforts to engage the public.
Botanical results are being made available to the community through specialist publications. Unpublished material by Visiani is being made freely available online on the PHAIDRA platform by the University's Library Centre. Publishing of the correspondence between Visiani and Pančić, and Visiani and Massalongo is being discussed. The GIS system will be made available to the Herbarium of Padova; the collected data could be made available to the public with the development of a web application.
We conclude that a cross-disciplinary, author- and collection-centric approach in questions of historical botany is highly effective
Are the plant collections held at the University of Padua still useful? A project to “put the collections to work for conservation”
No full textThe plant collections at the University of Padua include several herbaria of phanerogams, cryptogams, lichens, fungi, galls, some collections of seeds, wood samples, diatoms and macroalgae, several wax models and didactic boards. They consist of several thousands of specimens which were collected mainly from the end of the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century by the scholars of the Hortus Patavinus (e.g. A. Forti, R. de Visiani, P.A. Saccardo) and later by the researchers of the Botany Institute of the University. Lists of collections have been produced in 1895, in 1947 and recently in 1995 by different authors, but the accessibility is quite problematic and there is no complete updated catalogue. The collections are now held outside the research structure and are used mainly for didactic purposes. This way they risk losing their fundamental role in modern plant researches, like systematics, biodiversity and molecular genetics. We think that a better accessibility to the collections could save our precious academic heritage. The first step we are taking is the production of an electronic database of both the collections themselves and the specimens of the most important of them. We aim at increased collaboration with research institutes
Nomenclatural notes and typification of the names of plant taxa described by Josif Pančić from Montenegro
No full textVukojičić, Snežana, Đurović, Sanja Z., Lakušić, Dmitar, Kabaš, Eva, Lazarević, Predrag, Clementi, Moreno (2021): Nomenclatural notes and typification of the names of plant taxa described by Josif Pančić from Montenegro. Phytotaxa 490 (1): 1-17, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.490.1.1, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.490.1.
FIGURE 8 in Nomenclatural notes and typification of the names of plant taxa described by Josif Pančić from Montenegro
No full textFIGURE 8. Lectotype of Verbascum leptocladum Pančić (BEOU 7484).Published as part of Vukojičić, Snežana, Đurović, Sanja Z., Lakušić, Dmitar, Kabaš, Eva, Lazarević, Predrag & Clementi, Moreno, 2021, Nomenclatural notes and typification of the names of plant taxa described by Josif Pančić from Montenegro, pp. 1-17 in Phytotaxa 490 (1) on page 13, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.490.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/575426
Nomenclatural and taxonomical notes on some taxa described by Roberto de Visiani from Egypt and Sudan
No full textWe provide nomenclatural and taxonomical information on the names of sixteen taxa treated by Roberto de Visiani from
Egypt and Nubia (Sudan) in his 1836 work ‘Enumerazione ed illustrazione di alcune piante dell’Egitto e della Nubia
con otto tavole in rame’. We designate ten lectotypes (for Chrozophora brocchiana, Convolvulus lasiospermus, Corchorus
fruticulosus, Croton obliquifolium, Heliotropium brocchianum, Lithospermum obtusum, Trianthema sedifolia, Trigonella
arguta, Trigonella dura, and Volkameria acerbiana), and one neotype (for Convolvulus lasiospermus)
Nomenclatural notes about the names in Amaranthaceae published by Roberto de Visiani
Full text linkThe names in Amaranthaceae published by R. de Visiani are investigated. Amaranthus gangeticus var. cuspidatus is a nomen nudum and thus invalid according to Art. 38.1a of the ICN. Amaranthus hierichuntinus, Atriplex patula var. hastifolia, and Chenopodium album var. oblongum are lectotypified, respectively, on a specimen preserved at PAD, and illustrations by Scopoli and Vahl. We here propose to synonymyze the three names (new synonymies) respectively with Amaranthus graecizans subsp. graecizans, Atriplex patula subsp. patula, and the type subspecies of C. album. For nomenclatural purposes, also the name C. lanceolatum Willd. (heterotypic synonym of C. album subsp. album) is investigated and lectotypified, on a specimen preserved at B
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