Charlecote Park From the Library The Naming of Plants - three early botanists The Charlecote library holds a copy of: Philip Miller [1691-1771] The abridgement of The Gardeners Dictionary : containing the best and newest methods of cultivating and improving the kitchen, fruit, flower garden, and nursery; together with the management of vineyards, and the methods of making wine in England. In which likewise are included directions for propagating and improving, from real practice and experience, pasture lands and all sorts of timber trees - The sixth edition, corrected and much enlarged. (1771) see also TV Programme Timothy Walker: A Blooming History Timothy Walker is the director of the Oxford Botanic Garden. Timothy Walker chose for his programme the development of methods for the naming and classification of plants. Classification is the system used to try to bring order to the seeming chaos of Nature. He started the programme with John (Joannis) Raii (Ray)(1627-1705). Ray went on long European tours collecting plant and animal samples - he was an all-round biologist. He was important because he held the view that to classify a plant you needed to make note of all the features. He defined the meaning of species and realised that two similar plants but with, say, colour differences were not different species but just variants of the same species. That was a major breakthrough. What he also discovered, which has been important to this day, is that if you examine seeds they fall into two groups. Some have a paired structure and are the dicotyledenous plants (dicots) whereas others (e.g the grasses) do not and these are the monocots. This is a fundamental division of the plant kingdom. Ray was largely ignored or just not discovered because all his books were in Latin and he could not afford to illustrate them. Carl Linnaeus (1707 - 1778) was based at Uppsala University. To him Botany was all about sex and he upset the fellow scientists of the day by presenting his reseach in those terms - the blue-movie side of botany! He noticed that different types of plants had different numbers of sex organs (stamens and pistils) and developed a classification along those lines but it was a major oversimplification and you could find different numbers of these sex organs in flowers even on the same plant. However he pursued his idea vigorously and in 1735 published Systema Naturae in which he drew up a table. The first column were for plants with one stamen (Monandria) and so on up to 20 stamens. Then the columns were divided into those with 1,2 or 3 pistils. The first edition only had 14 pages but it grew with each of the 13 editions to 2400 pages. Having published the first edition he came to London to present it to the Royal Society. There was uproar because of the way he presented his work. He wanted to meet Phillip Miller whose ambition was to introduce a clear simple and universal way of naming plants. Plants were given all sorts of names and from their descriptions it was not possible to be sure that two descriptions applied to the same plant. This made research very difficult. So Miller founded the Society of Gardeners which met monthly in Chelsea and compared new plants coming in from all over the world with established examples. Eventually the Society buckled under the sheer volume of plants but the work made Miller's name and he was appointed Head of the Chelsea Physic Garden which still exists today. Miller was there for 50 years with the garden representing not just medicinal plants but also plants of economic importance such as dye plants (e.g. Woad) and fibre plants such as sisal used in rope making and cotton which eventually made America! Miller took all the notes from the Society of Gardeners and put them in his Gardener's Dictionary which went through eight editions. We hold the 7th edition of the abridged version (1771). This really is a list of names and is a very dry read. However he has started to indicate the latinized binomial as you can see for the entry: Crassula (Perfoliata) follis lanceolato-funbulatis feffilibus connatis canaliculatis fubulus convexis -Tallest Crassula with perfoliate leaves (having a leaf base that completely encloses the stem, so that the stem appears to pass through it - my explanation not from Miller).         The entry in the Full Gardener's Dictionary (volume 1) (not in the Charlecote library) is more helpful. Crassula altissima perfoliiata Tallest Crassula with leaves surrounding the stalks. Commonly called Aloe perfoliata These plants have been ranged under different Genera by former botanists, til Dr Dillenius constituted this genus, and broughtthem together.The first set was put under Aloe, the second under Cotyledon, the third, fourth, fifth and seventh was put under Aloe and the eighth sorts under Sedum, the sixth and ninth sorts were ranged under ficoides. He goes on to say The reason for this was, that the plants had not then produced flowers in Europe, so they had to be classed by the outer face of the plants. These plants are natives of the Cape of Good Hope. from whence they were brought into the European gardens. The first sort (Crassulat altissima perfoliata) does not send forth any side branches, unless the top be cut off, but it may be trained up to six or eight feet high.     Linnaeus wanted to meet Miller to try to persuade him to include his sexual methods of classifying plants in his dictionary. Miller refused and Linnaeus described Miller's work as mere plant collecting. Linnaeus met a German botanist studying in London, Johann Jacob Dillen Dillenius, Dillenius had read Linnaeus' book but found it unconvincing but did admire his knowledge of plants and the two became life-long friends.   Linnaeus returned to Sweden and established the National Botanic Garden at Upsalla and laid it out according to his sexual system - as it still is to this day. In Sweden he had status and money and eventually was knighted in 1757 when he took the name Carl von Linné. Plants were given very long names that described every aspect of the plant. Linnaeus recognized that this was unworkable but realised a plant name did not actually need to describe a plant but just be unique. He had also realised that plants could be grouped into Orders, Genera and species. His greatest contribution was the adoption of just two names for a plant (the latinized binomial) the first being the Genus and the second the specific epithet. For instance the tumbleweed known variously as Jim Hill mustard, Tall mustard, Tumble mustard, tumbleweed mustard, tall sisymbrium, and tall hedge mustard is now identified as Sisymbrium altissimum. In his Spcies Plantarum 1755 he named over 7000 plants. The binomial nomenclature was accepted all over the world except by Miller who only finally included it in his final 8th edition 1768. Also in the Charlecote library is a copy of The language of botany . being a dictionary of the terms made use of in that science, principally by Linnaeus: ... By Thomas Martyn.(1793) Thomas Martyn was Regius Professor of Botany at Cambridge University and an early adopter of Linnaean classification and nomenclature, which he promulgated in his public lectures. In this work, based on a paper given to the Linnean Society in 1789, he defines hundreds of Linnaean terms. This book may be read on-line. The URL has 117 characters so for those reading a paper copy of this article I have created a shorter URL: http://tinyurl.com/mfsz7tb   Len Mullenger is a Sunday volunteer guide. Any comments are welcome and can be sent to len@musicweb-international.com All articles can be read at http://www.musicweb-international.com/Charlecote   Return to Index page