"Orti botanici e parchi pubblici vuole essere una sintesi del 'panorama verde' presente a Venezia nel XIX secolo, con particolare riguardo alla nascita, allo sviluppo e alla conseguente distruzione dell'Orto Botanico di San Giobbe, creato con le amorevoli cure dalla famiglia Ruchinger ad uso del liceo di Santa Caterina per affiancare con efficacia lo studio della botanica. Derubricata tale materia dal programma scolastico, esso perderà progressivamente il suo scopo iniziale, che tramonterà definitivamente con l'installazione di un silurificio, seguito dagli impianti per l'illuminazione cittadina. Non mancano altre aree verdi in città fin dai tempi più remoti, che a fasi alterne compaiono in questo studio sotto i più svariati aspetti, sottolineando una volta di più la sana vivibilità di questa città d'acqua."--Back cover.

• Historia Ogrodu Botanicznego i ludzi z nim związanych = The history of the Botanic Garden and its associates / Hanna Werblan-Jakubiec
• Milczący królowie Ogrodu = Silent kings of the garden / Mariola Kukier-Wyrwicka
• Krajobraz kulturowy Ogrodu Botanicznego = Cultural landscape of the Botanic Garden / Małgorzata B. Kowalczyk.

"Learn to sketch and paint flowers, from bud to full-blown! Imagine learning to draw roses with Redoute, or tulips with Pieter Brugel. Imagine learning the secrets that made their flower paintings stand out in their eras and still stand out today. Classic Sketchbook: Botanicals is a draw-in book that shows you how by taking a close look at the details of great floral paintings and coaching readers to try the techniques with the help of an exper's suggestions. Printed on quality uncoated stock and suited for drawing and watercolor, each spread will consist of two working parts. The left-hand page is for study, featuring a close-up for a drawing or painting by a noted artist from the 19th century or earlier. The right-hand page is for drawing, with only a small box for the expert's brief coaching tips, observations, and a demonstrative sketch. While progressing through the book and trying the different artist styles, you'll gain observational confidence and techniques to apply your own drawing and painting. In learning from the masters, you'll become a master yourself!"-- Provided by publisher.

• List of figures Acknowledgements Introduction
• 1. 'The Sweet Flowers that Smile in the Walk of Man': floral femininity and female education
• 2. 'Unveiling the mysteries of vegetation': botany and the feminine
• 3. Sex, class and order in Flora's army
• 4. Forward plants and wanton women: botany and sexual anxiety in the late eighteenth century
• 5. 'Botany in an English dress': British flora and the 'fair daughters of Albion' Conclusion Appendices: Botanical poems by women Bibliography Index
• .
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In this fascinating study, Samantha George explores the cultivation of the female mind and the feminised discourse of botanical literature in eighteenth-century Britain. In particular, she discusses British women's engagement with the Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, and his unsettling discovery of plant sexuality. Previously ignored primary texts of an extraordinary nature are rescued from obscurity and assigned a proper place in the histories of science, eighteenth-century literature, and women's writing. The result is groundbreaking: the author explores nationality and sexuality debates in relation to botany and charts the appearance of a new literary stereotype, the sexually precocious female botanist. She uncovers an anonymous poem on Linnaean botany, handwritten in the eighteenth century, and subsequently traces the development of a new genre of women's writing - the botanical poem with scientific notes. The book is indispensable reading for all scholars of the eighteenth century, especially those interested in Romantic women's writing, or the relationship between literature and science. -- .
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• La importancia de la información histórica / Dr. Hugo Navarrete
• Estudio introductorio / Fernando Hidalgo Nistri
• Excursión realizada al Río Napo ; Notas botánicas ; Excursión botánica a Salinas, un pueblo indio en el Chimborazo / William Jameson
• Una excursión botánica / P. Luis Sodiro S.J.
• El Pichincha : estudios históricos, geológicos y topográficos / Jules Rèmy
• Ascensión al Chimborazo
• Anexo fotográfico de expediciones en el Ecuador.

• Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Prelude. The World of Trons; Introduction. The Age of Biology;
• 1. "The Awe in Which Biologists Hold Physicists": Building the First Phytotron at Caltech;
• 2. At Work in the Caltech Phytotron;
• 3. The Climatron; Coda I. The Finale of Frits Went;
• 4. The Postcolonial Science of the Australian Phytotron;
• 5. The Twin Phytotrons of the Triangle between Duke and North Carolina State;
• 6. Big Biology in the Biotron; Coda II. The Passing of the Age of Biology; Conclusion. The New Age of Climate; Appendices; I. Chemical Symbols and Substances.

• II. Phytotronic Units of IlluminationIII. Botanical Terms; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

"This is the first history of phytotrons: huge climate-controlled laboratories that enabled plant scientists to experiment on the environmental causes of growth and development of living organisms. Made possible by computers and other modern technologies of the early Cold War, such as air conditioning and humidity control, phytotrons promised an end to global hunger and political instability, spreading around the world to thirty countries after World War II. The United States built nearly a dozen, including the first at Caltech in 1949. By the mid-1960s, as support and funding for basic science dwindled, phytotrons declined and ultimately disappeared--until, nearly thirty years later, the British built the Ecotron to study the impact of climate change on biological communities. By recalling the forgotten history of phytotrons, David P.D. Munns reminds us of the important role they can play in helping researchers unravel the complexities of natural ecosystems in the Anthropocene"--Provided by publisher.

• Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Prelude. The World of Trons; Introduction. The Age of Biology;
• 1. "The Awe in Which Biologists Hold Physicists": Building the First Phytotron at Caltech;
• 2. At Work in the Caltech Phytotron;
• 3. The Climatron; Coda I. The Finale of Frits Went;
• 4. The Postcolonial Science of the Australian Phytotron;
• 5. The Twin Phytotrons of the Triangle between Duke and North Carolina State;
• 6. Big Biology in the Biotron; Coda II. The Passing of the Age of Biology; Conclusion. The New Age of Climate; Appendices; I. Chemical Symbols and Substances.

• II. Phytotronic Units of IlluminationIII. Botanical Terms; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

This is the first history of phytotrons, huge climate-controlled laboratories that enabled plant scientists to experiment on the environmental causes of growth and development of living organisms. Made possible by computers and other modern technologies of the early Cold War, such as air conditioning and humidity control, phytotrons promised an end to global hunger and political instability, spreading around the world to thirty countries after World War II. The United States built nearly a dozen, including the first at Caltech in 1949. By the mid-1960s, as support and funding for basic science dwindled, phytotrons declined and ultimately disappeared-until, nearly thirty years later, the British built the Ecotron to study the impact of climate change on biological communities. By recalling the forgotten history of phytotrons, Munns reminds us of the important role they can play in helping researchers unravel the complexities of natural ecosystems in the Anthropocene.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The circle of seasons: plants are life
• Early 19th century: pioneering in the west
• Late 19th century: a time of discovery
• Early 20th century: Montana botany blooms
• Mid - late 20th century: Montana botany matures.

Montana is a large state with diverse vegetation from Great Plains prairie and deciduous forest in the east, to northern coniferous forest and alpine tundra in the west. Discovering the botanical secrets of this spectacular landscape began with indigenous peoples and continued through the 20th Century with early explorers, geographers, and entrepreneurs followed by teachers, scientists and curious and dedicated lay persons. Montana's multitude of rugged mountains and wide open spaces means that botanical discoveries which started with the Lewis and Clark Expedition continue to this day. Montana's Pioneer Botanists brings together more than thirty biographies of these diverse people and traces the growth of botanical knowledge in this wild and beautiful state. The stories are illustrated with over 200 images including portraits, photos of Montana's landscapes and flowers, as well as botanical illustrations.

In the 1940s, the eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed a controversial theory: that vegetation on the islands off the west coast of Scotland had survived the last Ice Age. His premise flew in the face of what most botanists believed - that no plants had survived the 10,000-year period of extreme cold. But Heslop Harrison had proof - the plants and grasses found on the isle of Rum.Harrison didn't anticipate, however, an amateur botanist called John Raven, who boldly questioned whether these grasses were truly indigenous to the area, or whether they had been transported there. This is the story of what happened when a tenacious amateur set out to find out the truth, and how he uncovered a most extraordinary fraud.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In the 1940s, the eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed a controversial theory: that vegetation on the islands off the west coast of Scotland had survived the last Ice Age. His premise flew in the face of what most botanists believed - that no plants had survived the 10,000-year period of extreme cold. But Heslop Harrison had proof - the plants and grasses found on the isle of Rum.Harrison didn't anticipate, however, an amateur botanist called John Raven, who boldly questioned whether these grasses were truly indigenous to the area, or whether they had been transported there. This is the story of what happened when a tenacious amateur set out to find out the truth, and how he uncovered a most extraordinary fraud.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Finding the trail
• Colocasia esculenta in New Zealand : nga taro o aotearoa
• The origins, dispersal, and domestication of taro
• Natural and cultural history.

• Acknowledgments Prologue: Herbarium Philosophicum Part I: Ancient Plant-Souls
• 1. Plato's Plane Tree
• 2. Aristotle's Wheat
• 3. Plotinus' Anonymous "Great Plant" Part II. Medieval Plant-Instruments
• 4. Augustine's Pears
• 5. Avicenna's Celery
• 6. Maimonides' Palm Tree Part III. Modern Plant-Images
• 7. Leibniz's Blades of Grass
• 8. Kant's Tulip
• 9. Hegel's Grapes Part IV: Postmodern Plant-Subjects
• 10. Heidegger's Apple Tree
• 11. Derrida's Sunflowers
• 12. Irigaray's Water Lily Notes Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Despite their conceptual allergy to vegetal life, philosophers have used germination, growth, blossoming, fruition, reproduction, and decay as illustrations of abstract concepts; mentioned plants in passing as the natural backdrops for dialogues, letters, and other compositions; spun elaborate allegories out of flowers, trees, and even grass; and recommended appropriate medicinal, dietary, and aesthetic approaches to select species of plants. In this book, Michael Marder illuminates the vegetal centerpieces and hidden kernels that have powered theoretical discourse for centuries. Choosing twelve botanical specimens that correspond to twelve significant philosophers, he recasts the development of philosophy through the evolution of human and plant relations. A philosophical history for the postmetaphysical age, The Philosopher's Plant reclaims the organic heritage of human thought. With the help of vegetal images, examples, and metaphors, the book clears a path through philosophy's tangled roots and dense undergrowth, opening up the discipline to all readers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Around 1870 Ferdinand von Mueller, the greatest Australian botanist of the nineteenth century, began to advertise in several newspapers across Australia for lady plant collectors.

Around 1870 Ferdinand von Mueller, the greatest Australian botanist of the nineteenth century, began to advertise in several newspapers across Australia for lady plant collectors.

• Prologue: Victoria's Floras
• 1. Terra Incognita
• 2. Perils and Wonders
• 3. A Floral Sensation
• 4. An International Tempest
• 5. Return to the Wild
• 6. Cultivating Kew Gardens
• 7. His Grace and His Gardener
• 8. The Flowering of Chatsworth
• 9. Golden Square
• 10. Evergreens
• 11. Salvaging Kew Gardens
• 12. Trading Favors
• 13. Trials and Errors
• 14. The Great Stove
• 15. Reviving Kew Gardens
• 16. Return to El Dorado
• 17. Paxton, Inc.
• 18. First Bloom
• 19. Nature's Engineer
• 20. Empire under Glass
• Epilogue: Victoria Regia Redux
• Notes
• Bibliography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In 1837, a German naturalist named Robert Schomburgk was charting the South American terrirtory of Guiana on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society. Guiana, only recently joined to the British Empire, was almost uncharted, and knowledge of it stemmed primarily from Sir Walter Raleigh's account of his search for the legendary city El Dorado. Moving upriver, Schomburgk found not gold, but to his astonishment, a "vegetal wonder" - a water lily so colossal that it physically impeded the expedition's progress. The flowers were dazzlingly white; its leaves were five or six feet across. He took careful notes and packed up one of the plants as best he could, then sent them back to England, where news of the discovery spread and fed a horticultural mania. A race was on to bring a live specimen to England, and to bring it to flower. In honor of its being discovered during the year of the new queen's accession to the throne, the lily was named the Victoria regia. In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent flower, from its discovery to the manner in which its influence touched upon nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture. Holway recounts how the lily's appearance was reproduced everywhere, giving rise to new experiments in hothouse architecture and eventually serving as a basis for the design of the Crystal Palace, the most impressive demonstration and symbol of the empire's unrivaled industrial might and natural bounty. The Flower of Empire is a revealing and enduring work of cultural history.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface Introduction: Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von Jacquin Chapter One: A Leiden Botanist Chapter Two: Botanical Expedition to the Caribbean Chapter Three: The Selectarum stirpium americanarum historia Conclusion: Ambassador of Flora
• Appendix I: Jacquin's American Plants
• Appendix II: Jacquin's American Animals
• Appendix III: Jacquin's Publications Bibliography Indices.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin's American Plants offers a detailed account of the Austrian botanical expedition to the Caribbean that took place between 1754 and 1759, culminating in the publication of the Selectarum stirpium americanarum historia (1763) by the famous Dutch-born scientist, the first Linnaean botanist in the New World. Novel findings about Jacquin's family and early life are given. Through a careful reading of Jacquin's own publications, letters and manuscripts, Santiago Madrinan provides, from a botanist's perspective, a meticulous description of the places visited by Jacquin and the plants he collected. The splendid color illustrations of the plants published in the luxury second edition of the Selectarum in 1780 are here reprinted, together with an annotated list of the species described. This title was awarded the Stafleu Medal for 2015 for publications of 2013 and 2014 for outstanding publications in historical, bibliographical, and/or nomenclatural aspects of plant taxonomy.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Cover; contents; Preface; Acknowledgements;
• Chapter 1: Introduction; Significant events in bat research history; Bat bioregions;
• Chapter 2: Travelogue; Cape York
• Wet Tropics; Top End and Kakadu; Kimberley; Deserts; Great Dividing Range; Murray-Darling Basin; Significant islands; Lord Howe Island; Christmas Island; Bats in major cities; Brisbane; Sydney; Canberra; Melbourne; Hobart; Adelaide; Perth; Darwin; Finding bats in cities and towns;
• Chapter 3: How bats are designed and how they work; How bats are designed; Interesting anatomical facts; Keeping clean; Skulls and teeth; Ears.

To hold a little microbat in your hand, its body the size of the end of your thumb, is nothing but astounding. Its head is nearly the size of a man's fingernail, its tiny ears are twitching as it struggles to get free, and then it bares its teeth to try and scare you into letting it go. Inside that tiny head is a powerhouse of information. Some of our little bats know the entire landscape of our east coast, and can pinpoint a cave entrance in dense forest 500 km from its last home. When they get there they know what to do - where to forage, which bat to mate with and how to avoid local predators. A Natural History of Australian Bats uncovers the unique biology and ecology of these wonderful creatures. It features a description of each bat species found in Australia, as well as a section on bat myths. The book is enhanced by stunning colour photographs from Steve Parish, most of which have never been seen before.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: natural history and visual culture in the Spanish empire
• A botanical reconquista
• Natural history and visual epistemology
• Painting as exploration
• Economic botany and the limits of the visual
• Visions of imperial nature: global white space, local color
• Conclusion: the empire as an image machine.

Between 1777 and 1816, botanical expeditions crisscrossed the vast Spanish empire in an ambitious project to survey the flora of much of the Americas, the Caribbean, and the Philippines. While these voyages produced written texts and compiled collections of specimens, they dedicated an overwhelming proportion of their resources and energy to the creation of visual materials. European and American naturalists and artists collaborated to manufacture a staggering total of more than 12,000 botanical illustrations. Yet these images have remained largely overlookedOCountil now. In this lavishly illustrated volume, Daniela Bleichmar gives this archive its due, finding in these botanical images a window into the worlds of Enlightenment science, visual culture, and empire. Through innovative interdisciplinary scholarship that bridges the histories of science, visual culture, and the Hispanic world, Bleichmar uses these images to trace two related histories: the little-known history of scientific expeditions in the Hispanic Enlightenment and the history of visual evidence in both science and administration in the early modern Spanish empire. As Bleichmar shows, in the Spanish empire visual epistemology operated not only in scientific contexts but also as part of an imperial apparatus that had a long-established tradition of deploying visual evidence for administrative purposes. a".
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Introduction Part I
• 1. The Eyes of Others
• 2. Farmers and Kings
• 3. The Paper Road
• 4. The Golden Mountain Gate Part II
• 5. Bodies Real and Virtual
• 6. Lost Worlds
• 7. The Mountain
• 8. Adventurers
• 9. The Book of the Earth Notes Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This exhilarating book interweaves the stories of two early twentieth-century botanists to explore the collaborative relationships each formed with Yunnan villagers in gathering botanical specimens from the borderlands between China, Tibet, and Burma. Erik Mueggler introduces Scottish botanist George Forrest, who employed Naxi adventurers in his fieldwork from 1906 until his death in 1932. We also meet American Joseph Francis Charles Rock, who, in 1924, undertook a dangerous expedition to Gansu and Tibet with the sons and nephews of Forrest's workers. Mueggler describes how the Naxi workers and their Western employers rendered the earth into specimens, notes, maps, diaries, letters, books, photographs, and ritual manuscripts. Drawing on an ancient metaphor of the earth as a book, Mueggler provides a sustained meditation on what can be copied, translated, and revised and what can be folded back into the earth.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Manchester, 1822
• 2. Gardening in Manchester 1790-1887
• 3. A Botanic Garden for Manchester
• 4. The Membership 'Individuals of the highest respectability'
• 5. Creating the Garden
• 6. The Glasshouses 'Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.'
• 7. Staffing the Garden
• 8. 'It is not a church, not a palazzo, not a chateau' 1839-1854
• 9. 'Art Triumphed over Nature' 1857
• 10. '... The Darkness Before the Dawn' 1858-1865
• 11. 'The Genius Behind the Machine' 1865-1887
• 12. 'Our Poverty and not our Will Consented' 1889-1894
• 13. Struggling On 1895-1907
• 14. Conclusion
• Appendix 1. Occupational Analysis of the membership
• Appendix 2. The Herbarium of the Manchester Botanical and Horticultural Society.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The Manchester Botanical and Horticultural Society was founded in 1827 to allow members the opportunity to study botany and horticulture and to create an ambience "not unlike a fashionable resort". Today the Garden is all but forgotten and only the former entrance gates and a street name remain. This book, illustrated with many contemporary engravings and postcards, charts the history of the Garden; its international reputation in horticultural developments and many floral triumphs; its recurrent financial crises and ultimate degeneration into a venue for cat and dog shows and final conversion to a doomed amusement park. Ann Brooks studied Pharmacy at Manchester University followed by a varied career in hospital pharmacy. Her great love of gardening and the history of the gardening movement led her to return to academia and she completed a PhD in 2007 on The Manchester Botanic Garden and the Movement for Subscription Botanic Gardens. She is the co-author of a number of papers on the history of Manchester and is currently writing a book on the movement for subscription botanic gardens and conducting research on Victorian villa gardens.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Pt. I. Concise History of Poisonous Plants in Britain and Europe
• Pt. II. A-Z of Poisonous Plants
• Pt. III. Mushrooms, Toadstools and Other Fungi
• Appendix I. Table of poisonous plants mentioned in early European texts
• Appendix II. Table of poisonous plants not listed in the main A-Z section
• Appendix III. Research tools.

The botanical history of Britain and North West Europe has a dark and a light side. Plants have been used as weapons to harm people, taken deliberately as addictive drugs and also employed as tools in witchcraft and used as magical amulets. Yet many of these same plants have been medicinally vital to numerous European communities; as the author notes, frequently the only difference between a benevolent medicine and a poison is dosage. In this book, which is richly illustrated with modern colour photographs and illustrations from herbals, Robert Bevan-Jones brings together a wealth of documentary and archaeo-botanical sources to discuss the cultural, social (and anti-social) role of the fifty most significant species of poisonous plants and fungi found in Britain, either as natives or as introductions. An introductory essay puts into context the development of British society's knowledge of toxic plants: the 'cultural botany' applied in Britain today has evolved over thousands of years, absorbing information from European texts and importing useful plants from Europe, such as the mandrake. The book's central A to Z section - from aconite to yew - then informs the reader about the history and uses of 43 species of poisonous plants, especially those that have a documented history of medicinal usage. Four important fungi species - death cap, liberty cap, fly agaric and ergot - also have separate essays. As well as the plants' histories and appearance, their chemical constituents receive coverage; these give them powerful and diverse properties, which demand our admiration and respect. The book aims to add to the knowledge offered by field identification guides, and help reduce the risk associated with accidental ingestion. Case histories are given in as much detail as possible and the information will hopefully help the reader understand the properties of plants they may encounter, either in an archaeological, botanical or horticultural context. Most of these plants can yet be found growing in woodlands, parks, botanical gardens, roadsides, waterways, churchyards and abbey sites. This is an essential book not only for botanists and historical ecologists, but also for anyone interested in the toxic plant traditions of Britain and Europe.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: A Book of Changes
• 1. Somewhere Between Colorado and California
• 2. The Calculus of Change
• 3. The Purloined Tree
• 4. Capturing a Cloud: On the Stability and Movement of Bristlecone Forests
• 5. The Upper Edge
• 6. Recovering the Forest
• 7. How Bristlecones Came to the Great Basin
• 8. Figures of a Tree
• 9. An Aesthetic of Bristlecones
• 10. The Trees in Town
• 11. The Trees Just Out of Town
• 12. Walks in Woods
• Afterword: Ron and Charlie.

An engaging, well-illustrated natural and cultural history of the oldest living organism-the bristlecone pine. Since Edmund Schulman discovered in 1958 that individual bristlecones live nearly 5,000 years, the trees have been investigated primarily for the elaborate record their rings contain. The trees have been ""read' closely, with major consequences for natural and human history. Historians have read local and global environmental change. Archaeologists have rewritten the history of civilization. Writers have transformed them into figures pertinent to the human dilemmas of time and eternity. A Garden of Bristlecones investigates professional and popular conceptions as a set of narratives drawn from the outside and inside of the trees. It reveals the premises of the investigators, the nature of their inquiry, and the extent of their knowledge, while also revealing the Great Basin bristlecone itself. Illustrations by Valerie Cohen.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• ""Contents""; ""Introduction""; ""Autobiography""; ""1 Childhood; St Petersburg, Hampstead, Gosport""; ""2 France; Saumur to Toulouse, 1814â€?18""; ""3 Montauban to Montpellier, 1818â€?22""; ""4 A Visit to England, 1823""; ""5 A Tour in Scotland and the Lake District""; ""6 France Again; Botanizing in the Pyrenees, 1823â€?25""; ""7 Return to England, 1826â€?27""; ""8 London Society; Further Travel, 1827â€?28""; ""9 Legal Studies and Botanical Pursuits, 1829â€?30""; ""10 Death of His Father; Montpellier and Geneva, 1831""; ""11 Death of His Uncle; Congress at Vienna, 1832""

• ""12 Marriage and Botany at Last, 1833â€?34""; ""List of Abbreviations""; ""Notes""; ""Appendices""; ""A: Textual Emendations""; ""B: Textual Variants and Notes""; ""C: Index of Plant Names""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""I""; ""J""; ""L""; ""M""; ""N""; ""O""; ""P""; ""Q""; ""R""; ""S""; ""T""; ""U""; ""V""; ""W""; ""Y""; ""Z""; ""D: Index of Persons and Works""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""I""; ""J""; ""K""; ""L""; ""M""; ""N""; ""O""; ""P""; ""Q""; ""R""; ""S""; ""T""; ""U""; ""V""; ""W""; ""X""; ""Y""; ""Z""

In this autobiography of his early life (1800-1834), George Bentham, nephew of the great Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, offers a lively depiction of the times, both in England and on the Continent, particulary of post-Napoleonic France, where he lived with his family for twelve years. An emerging figure himself in the field of botany - where he would prove to be one of the great taxonomists of the century - George Bentham worked creatively for the scientific societies he joined, activity that culminated in his becoming an unofficial ambassador-at-large at scientific congresses in Europe in the 1830s, which he describes in enthusiastic detail.
The text of the manuscript, preserved in the Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is published here for the first time, with an introduction providing historical context, explanatory notes, and indexes of plant names and of persons and works mentioned.

This collection of botanical illustrations from the splendid collections at the Library of Congress showcases the discoveries made over a 400-year period, chronicling the exploration from the viewpoint of some of the best botanists and illustrators of their time.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Botanizing
• Information networks in the botanical community
• Botanizing and self-improvement
• Children, education, and American botany
• Gender and botany
• Botanizing and the invention of leisure
• Natural theology and amateur botany
• Botany and the rhetoric of utility
• The triumph of professionalization
• The nature-study movement : the legacy amateur botany.

After rising to fashion during the 1820s, botany rapidly became the most popular science in America for recreational and pedagogical purposes, and it remained tremendously popular throughout the century. Tens of thousands of enthusiasts, calling themselves "botanizers, " embraced the pastime by collecting, identifying, and preserving specimens. Elizabeth Keeney examines the role of botany in the lives of these amateur scientists and establishes the role that they in turn played in the botanical community. Using popular magazines, textbooks, letters, diaries, fiction, and autobiographies of the day, The Botanizers explores the popular culture of this avocation, which attracted both men and women. According to Keeney, amateur botanizers and trained professionals managed to maintain a spirit of cooperation and collegiality throughout most of the century. Amateurs were usually less interested in contributing to science than they were in self-improvement, religious expression, and other aspects of botanizing that were of little importance to professionals. As botany became increasingly professionalized, the goals of professionals and amateurs diverged even further, and by late century, the botanizers had rejected the new biological focus because it ignored their motivations for botanizing.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

"Provides an engaging and illuminating view of the culture of the South and the study of natural history. . . . Ravenel's achievements, Haygood argues, refute Clement Eaton's contention that slavery stifled creative thought; they also modify the more extravagant claim for southern equality with northern science made in Thomas Cary Johnson's Scientific Interests in the Old South (1936)." --American Historical Review "Convincingly argues for the importance of these middle years to understanding American science and vividly illustrates the effect of the Civil War on science. . . . Ravenel, a geographically isolated planter with a college degree but no scientific training, managed to serve as one of America's leading mycologists, despite continual financial and medical problems and the disruption of the Civil War. This lively account of his life and work is at once inspiring and tragic." Journal of the History of Biology "A thoroughly enjoyable biography of one of the important American naturalists, botanists, and mycologists of the 1800s. . . . Truly an outstanding contribution to the history of American science." --Brittonia.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)