Guide to Standard Floras of the World Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Prologue to the first edition
- Prologue to the second edition
- Acknowledgments for the first edition
- Acknowledgments for the second edition
- I General introduction
- II Systematic bibliography
- Appendix A Major general bibliographies, indices and library catalogues covering world floristic literature
- Appendix B Abbreviations of serials cited
- Addenda in proof
- Geographical index
- Author index
Prologue to the first edition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Prologue to the first edition
- Prologue to the second edition
- Acknowledgments for the first edition
- Acknowledgments for the second edition
- I General introduction
- II Systematic bibliography
- Appendix A Major general bibliographies, indices and library catalogues covering world floristic literature
- Appendix B Abbreviations of serials cited
- Addenda in proof
- Geographical index
- Author index
Summary
No branch of botanical literature is more useful, and at the same time more neglected than [floras] … For a beginner [the Flora] is the first, and one of the most important aids for obtaining botanical knowledge.
de Candolle and Sprengel, Elements of the philosophy of plants (Edinburgh, 1821).Quatenus bibliotheca in omni scientia primum à studioso evolvi debeat, ita etiam est Botanico maxime necessaria, quum multiplex usus inde deducitur …
Linnaeus, Bibliotheca botanica (Amsterdam, 1736; reprinted Halle 1747).Now, there are two different attitudes towards learning from others. One is the dogmatic attitude of transplanting everything, whether or not it is suited to our conditions. This is no good. The other attitude is to use our heads and learn those things which suit our conditions, that is, to absorb whatever experience is useful to us. That is the attitude we should adopt.
Mao Tse-tung, 27 February 1957, in Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (New York, 1967).Of all forms of human activity related to plants, that of knowing the kinds, properties and uses of such plants as grow in one's Landschaft, or ‘parish’, is perhaps the longest-established. Most, if not all, ‘traditional’ cultures centered on the land possess, or once possessed, a comparatively detailed knowledge of the local flora, in many cases recognizing the same species (and sometimes genera) as would a modern professional botanist; and, in like manner to many ‘advanced’ societies, this knowledge is best developed amongst a comparatively small circle of savants.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Guide to Standard Floras of the WorldAn Annotated, Geographically Arranged Systematic Bibliography of the Principal Floras, Enumerations, Checklists and Chorological Atlases of Different Areas, pp. ix - xvPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001