Bibliotheca Botanica

Title page of Linnaeus’s Bibliotheca Botanica, 1736.

Bibliotheca Botanica ("Bibliography of botany") (Amsterdam, 1736, Salomen Schouten; 2nd edn., 1751) was written by Swedish botanist, physician, zoologist and naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778).^[1] The book was written and published in Amsterdam when Linnaeus was twenty-eight and dedicated to the botanist Johannes Burman (1707–1779). The first edition appeared in 1735 with the full title Bibliotheca Botanica recensens libros plus mille de plantis huc usque editos secundum systema auctorum naturale in classes, ordines, genera et species; it was an elaborate classification system for his catalogue of books.

The Preface, dated 8 August 1735, on pages 2–19 contains Linnaeus’s extended account of botanical history in the form of a botanical analogy, in pages 2–3 Linnaeus lists previous bibliographers and then gives his account of botanical history leading to a golden age lasting from 1683 to 1703 (see also Incrementa Botanices, Biuur 1753 and Reformatio Botanices, Reftelius, 1762, for other historical notes by Linnaeus).^[2] The Preface mentions that Bibliotheca Botanica was the first part of a planned Bibliotheca medica (which he did not produce).

A digest of Bibliotheca Botanica, which elaborated on the first chapter of the Fundamenta Botanica is given in Aphorisms 5–52 of the Philosophia Botanica.

Linnaean authority Frans Stafleu describes the book as follows:

^[3]

Botanical bibliographies

Linnaeus's method for classifying the elements of Bibliotheca Botanica.

The term “methodists” (methodici, equivalent to present-day systematists) was coined by Linnaeus in his Bibliotheca Botanica to denote the authors who care about the principles of classification in contrast to the mere collectors who are concerned primarily with the description of plants paying little or no attention to their arrangement into genera etc. For Linnaeus the important early Methodists were Italian physician and botanist Andrea Caesalpino, the English naturalist John Ray, German physician and botanist Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, and a French physician, botanist, and traveller Joseph Pitton de Tournefort.^[4]

Botanical bibliography effectively began, as did bibliography in general, with the work of the sixteenth century Swiss natural historian and polymath Conrad Gesner (1516–65). His Bibliotheca Universalis, a general compendium of some 12,000 items in Latin, Greek or Hebrew arranged by authors’ forenames, appeared in 1545 as an attempt to bring some order into the rapidly increasing range of literature consequent to the Renaissance and the introduction of printing.^[5]

The Bibliotheca Botanica was the first botanical bibliography arranged by subject. The titles were arranged hierarchically into 16 classes or chapters – each with one or more ordines or sections. Applying this methodus naturalis to books and people was a mark of his ‘scholastic’ view of the world. Most subsequent classifications of botanical literature, including geographical entities, would be more or less empirically based highlighting a recurrent conflict between essentialism, empiricism, nominalism and other doctrines in the theory and practice of any kind of classification.^[6]

Historical assessment

Heller notes the incomplete coverage of material, incorrect dating of books, and many minor errors in his book descriptions. Also, that his “natural method” of classifying books was “not very practical”.^[7]

Bibliographic details

Full bibliographic details including exact dates of publication, pagination, editions, facsimiles, brief outline of contents, location of copies, secondary sources, translations, reprints, travelogues, and commentaries are given in Stafleu and Cowan's Taxonomic Literature.^[8]

References

Bibliography

• Frodin, David 2002. Guide to Standard Floras of the World, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
• Heller, John L. 1970. “Linnaeus’s Bibliotheca Botanica.” Taxon 19: 363-411.
• Stafleu, Frans A. 1971. Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: the Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735–1789. Utrecht: International Association for Plant Taxonomy. ISBN 90-6046-064-2.
• Stafleu, Frans A. & Cowan, Richard S. 1981. "Taxonomic Literature. A Selective Guide to Botanical Publications with dates, Commentaries and Types. Vol III: Lh–O." Regnum Vegetabile 105.

History of botany
Fields and disciplines	Agriculture Biogeography Bryology Cladistics Comparative anatomy Cytology Economic botany Ethnobotany Floristics Forestry Genetic engineering Horticulture Lichenology Molecular phylogenetics Mycology Natural history Numerical taxonomy Paleobotany Palynology Phycology Phytochemistry Phytogeography Plant anatomy Plant ecology Plant genetics Plant morphology Plant pathology Plant physiology Pteridology
Institutions	Jardin des Plantes Natural History Museum, London Orto botanico di Padova Orto botanico di Pisa Rothamsted Research Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Publications	Historia Plantarum and Causes of Plants of Theophrastus c. 300 BC De Plantis of Nicolaus of Damascus c. 1st-century BC De Materia Medica of Dioscorides c. 60 AD Naturalis Historia 77–79 AD De Vegetabilibus of Albertus Magnus c. 1256 Herbarum Vivae Icones 1530 Libellus De Re Herbaria Novus 1538 Kreütterbuch of Hieronymus Bock 1539 De plantis libri XVI of Caesalpino 1583 Stirpium Historiae 1583 Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes 1597 Prodromus Theatrici Botanici 1620 Pinax theatri botanici 1623 Anatome Plantarum 1675 Anatomy of Plants 1682 Historia Plantarum of John Ray 1686–1704 De Sexu Plantarum Epistola 1694 Éléments de botanique 1694 Vegetable Staticks 1727 Systema Naturae 1735 Genera Plantarum 1737 Philosophia Botanica 1751 Species Plantarum 1753 Systema Naturae, 10th ed. 1758–9 Familles des Plantes 1763–4 Experiments Upon Vegetables 1779 Die Metamorphose der Pflantzen 1790 Traité d'Anatomie et de Physiologie Végétale 1802 Recherches Chimiques sur la Végétation 1804 Beyträge zur Anatomie der Pflanzen 1812 Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis 1824–73 Nepenthaceae Die Vegetabilische Zelle 1851 Vergleichende Untersuchungen 1851 On the Origin of Species 1859 Experiments on Plant Hybridization 1865 Die Vegetation der Erde 1872 Plantesamfund 1895 Pflanzengeographie auf Physiologischer Grundlage 1898 Variation and Evolution in Plants 1950 Ontogeny and Phylogeny 1977 An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants 1981
Theories and concepts	Alternation of generations Cell theory Center of diversity Phylogenetic nomenclature Spontaneous generation Taxonomy Ultrastructure
Influential figures	Theophrastus c. 371–287 BC Pliny the Elder 23–79 AD Pedanius Dioscorides c. 40–90 AD Otto Brunfels 1464–1534 Hieronymus Bock 1498–1554 Valerius Cordus 1515–1544 William Turner 1515–1568 Rembert Dodoens 1517–1585 Andrea Cesalpino 1519–1603 Gaspard Bauhin 1560–1624 Joachim Jungius 1587–1657 John Ray 1623–1705 Nehemiah Grew 1628–1711 Marcello Malpighi 1628–1694 Joseph Pitton de Tournefort 1656–1708 Rudolf Jakob Camerarius 1665–1721 Stephen Hales 1677–1761 Bernard de Jussieu 1699–1777 Carolus Linnaeus 1707–1778 Michel Adanson 1727–1806 Jan Ingenhousz 1730–1799 Joseph Banks 1743–1820 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749–1832 Carl Ludwig Willdenow 1765–1812 Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure 1767–1845 Alexander von Humboldt 1769–1859 Aimé Bonpland 1773–1858 Thomas Nuttall 1786–1859 Joakim Frederik Schouw 1789–1852 Matthias Jakob Schleiden 1804–1881 Alexander Braun 1805–1877 George Engelmann 1809–1884 Asa Gray 1810–1888 August Grisebach 1814–1879 Joseph Hooker 1817–1911 Gregor Mendel 1822–1884 Nathanael Pringsheim 1823–1894 Wilhelm Hofmeister 1824–1877 Julius von Sachs 1832–1897 Eugenius Warming 1841–1924 William Gilson Farlow 1844–1919 Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper 1856–1901 Nikolai Vavilov 1887–1943 Barbara McClintock 1902–1992 G. Ledyard Stebbins 1906–2000 Eugene Odum 1913–2002 Arthur Cronquist 1919–1992
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