Decipher "Hrb. Musei Palat. Vindob."
Aha.
Herbarium Musei Palatini Vindobonensis, the Herbarium of the Museum of Natural History at Vienna.
You see I discover the meanings of these things every once in a great while... I'm sure I'd figured this one out before... but I have issues with writing the explanations down in useful places.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Auct. non Ipse
Unraveled Latin mystery of the day:
auct. non.
In Latin, auctoris (singular) or auctorum (plural) means 'author.' The above phrase is an abbreviation for auctorum non, which means 'of authors [but] not...' It is used for misapplied names, in cases where you specifically want to point out that this name is NOT the one published by, say, Linnaeus. Usually, it comes in handy when a subsequent author happened to publish a taxon using the same name as something that had been used before, and you're worried that whoever is reading your notes afterward might get confused.
I think it's interesting that you can keep track of all of these things, and that it's even important to do so. I do wish, however, that we were approaching the age where all of this information would be more well organized and easily accessible. I love living in this fast-paced computer age, where there is such a drive to realize exactly how something could be improved, and then to succeed in making that happen. Gmail is my favorite poster child of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, until or unless some really innovative and fired-up people start in on our botanical database problems, I'm not too optimistic about getting drastic improvements in our nomenclatural world. Yeah, GPI (API & LAPI) are on the right track, and yes, botanicus.org and biodiversitylibrary.org are too, and IPNI and the Harvard University Herbarium databases are lifesavers. But the point is - there's room for a lot of improvement. We need more collaboration, more drastic combination of resources and output, and some amazing minds to get it all integrated beyond our wildest dreams.
Oh well. In the meantime, this small brain will go on trying to interpret her small world of botanists' atrocious handwriting, and slowly decoding all that lovely old Latin. With the gentleness of a butcher.
I think these big herbarium windows give me a flightier imagination than usual.
auct. non.
In Latin, auctoris (singular) or auctorum (plural) means 'author.' The above phrase is an abbreviation for auctorum non, which means 'of authors [but] not...' It is used for misapplied names, in cases where you specifically want to point out that this name is NOT the one published by, say, Linnaeus. Usually, it comes in handy when a subsequent author happened to publish a taxon using the same name as something that had been used before, and you're worried that whoever is reading your notes afterward might get confused.
I think it's interesting that you can keep track of all of these things, and that it's even important to do so. I do wish, however, that we were approaching the age where all of this information would be more well organized and easily accessible. I love living in this fast-paced computer age, where there is such a drive to realize exactly how something could be improved, and then to succeed in making that happen. Gmail is my favorite poster child of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, until or unless some really innovative and fired-up people start in on our botanical database problems, I'm not too optimistic about getting drastic improvements in our nomenclatural world. Yeah, GPI (API & LAPI) are on the right track, and yes, botanicus.org and biodiversitylibrary.org are too, and IPNI and the Harvard University Herbarium databases are lifesavers. But the point is - there's room for a lot of improvement. We need more collaboration, more drastic combination of resources and output, and some amazing minds to get it all integrated beyond our wildest dreams.
Oh well. In the meantime, this small brain will go on trying to interpret her small world of botanists' atrocious handwriting, and slowly decoding all that lovely old Latin. With the gentleness of a butcher.
I think these big herbarium windows give me a flightier imagination than usual.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
27 Jan 10 Fragments
Word of the day.
Alluvial soil: "alluvium" is loose soil that includes particles of varying size (silt, clay, sand, gravel) which has been eroded from something and then gets deposited and reshaped by water, in a non-marine setting. If it gets cemented together, it is called an alluvial deposit. Alluvial soil is apparently a rich and fertile soil - one reason that civilization began at the Tigris and Euphrates was that these rivers deposited a great deal of the stuff between them, creating an alluvial desert.
Passing thought of the day.
What do women who wear make-up do, when they find that they need to rub their eyes?
Alluvial soil: "alluvium" is loose soil that includes particles of varying size (silt, clay, sand, gravel) which has been eroded from something and then gets deposited and reshaped by water, in a non-marine setting. If it gets cemented together, it is called an alluvial deposit. Alluvial soil is apparently a rich and fertile soil - one reason that civilization began at the Tigris and Euphrates was that these rivers deposited a great deal of the stuff between them, creating an alluvial desert.
Passing thought of the day.
What do women who wear make-up do, when they find that they need to rub their eyes?
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Ghosts of curators past and other fascinating botanists
So, to alleviate the boredom of entering dozens of often repetitive herbarium specimens into a database all day long, sometimes I get the idea to google one of the collectors or identifiers listed on the sheets, to find out what these people were really like - why, for example, Virginius H. Chase felt compelled to collect about six times as many specimens of Crataegus than I really feel like he needed to.
From my perusing, I have discovered that the Curator of this herbarium several people ago, George Neville Jones, died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident on the way to a nearby park/reserve, Allerton Park. I've been there a few times myself - once to actually explore, picnic and play a little frisbee, and once for the wedding of two acquaintances. It's a nice place. If I ever go again, I'm going to need to hunt up the tree there that's dedicated to him.
Dr. Jones's wife, Almut G. Jones, apparently became curator several years after he died. She did a great deal with the Asteraceae, the first family I worked on databasing when I came here. Apparently she had a very strong personality, so in a way I'm somewhat glad that I will never have the chance to meet her (being that I can be rather meek and wimpy myself), but I really respect the work she did here, especially on labeling so many of the type specimens that I work with. Remnants of her presence here are still running around... I had to box up a bunch of her books and papers the first week, and store them away; I cleared out one of her desks to use as my own, and - do not be creeped out - occasionally don one of her lab coats for an extra layer of warmth when the place is feeling particularly frigid. I frequently refer to her on a first name basis when speaking with my husband, feeling just a little bit of a connection with her since I'm probably spending as much time in here as she ever did, and more than anybody else has in a good long while. (I also have been borrowing her leftover tea and sugar, assuming she wouldn't really care.)
As for Virginius H. Chase, when I tried looking up him, I first got this big long article on his aunt, Mary Ellen Chase. She met her husband, William, when she was 19 and he 34, but unfortunately he died within a year of their marriage. Mary Ellen, however, went on to discover a love of botany while working with her nephew, Virginius, and became one of the leading scholars on the grasses. She wrote, 'Grass is what holds the earth together.' I like that. I almost wish I had lived in the age where there was so much to be discovered... fairly easily discovered, since much of the biodiversity of this country was yet to be discovered, believe it or not, even in the first half of the 20th century.
Virginius appears to have been much less famous than his Aunt, but was still renowned for his collections, many of which were made around his hometown of Peoria Heights (another city I am somewhat acquainted with - they have an excellent downtown and fun drive along the Illinois River through beautiful neighborhoods.)
However, I still think Virginius collected too dang many hawthorns.
Fragment of the day.
From my perusing, I have discovered that the Curator of this herbarium several people ago, George Neville Jones, died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident on the way to a nearby park/reserve, Allerton Park. I've been there a few times myself - once to actually explore, picnic and play a little frisbee, and once for the wedding of two acquaintances. It's a nice place. If I ever go again, I'm going to need to hunt up the tree there that's dedicated to him.
Dr. Jones's wife, Almut G. Jones, apparently became curator several years after he died. She did a great deal with the Asteraceae, the first family I worked on databasing when I came here. Apparently she had a very strong personality, so in a way I'm somewhat glad that I will never have the chance to meet her (being that I can be rather meek and wimpy myself), but I really respect the work she did here, especially on labeling so many of the type specimens that I work with. Remnants of her presence here are still running around... I had to box up a bunch of her books and papers the first week, and store them away; I cleared out one of her desks to use as my own, and - do not be creeped out - occasionally don one of her lab coats for an extra layer of warmth when the place is feeling particularly frigid. I frequently refer to her on a first name basis when speaking with my husband, feeling just a little bit of a connection with her since I'm probably spending as much time in here as she ever did, and more than anybody else has in a good long while. (I also have been borrowing her leftover tea and sugar, assuming she wouldn't really care.)
As for Virginius H. Chase, when I tried looking up him, I first got this big long article on his aunt, Mary Ellen Chase. She met her husband, William, when she was 19 and he 34, but unfortunately he died within a year of their marriage. Mary Ellen, however, went on to discover a love of botany while working with her nephew, Virginius, and became one of the leading scholars on the grasses. She wrote, 'Grass is what holds the earth together.' I like that. I almost wish I had lived in the age where there was so much to be discovered... fairly easily discovered, since much of the biodiversity of this country was yet to be discovered, believe it or not, even in the first half of the 20th century.
Virginius appears to have been much less famous than his Aunt, but was still renowned for his collections, many of which were made around his hometown of Peoria Heights (another city I am somewhat acquainted with - they have an excellent downtown and fun drive along the Illinois River through beautiful neighborhoods.)
However, I still think Virginius collected too dang many hawthorns.
Fragment of the day.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Definitions from a previous life
I worked for three and a half years on a small genus in the family Apiaceae, namely Conium. All that time, for some reason I never bothered to pin down the definitions for the specific epithets of the three African species in the group. So today I decided to try to find out. Here are my findings:
sphaerocarpum - means 'spherical fruit,' oddly enough. Seriously, why did that not occur to me earlier?
fontanum - 'a spring.' Interesting... makes sense, since these were often found on damp ground in the mountains.
chaerophylloides - 'to please.' Huh? I know this species was named after Chaerophyllum, since it resembles that related species, but "chaero-" has still got me confused. I'm going to need to dig further.
Clearly this matter will have to come up for further study at a later date, since I don't have the time for a fuller study right now. Holotype not specified. ;)
sphaerocarpum - means 'spherical fruit,' oddly enough. Seriously, why did that not occur to me earlier?
fontanum - 'a spring.' Interesting... makes sense, since these were often found on damp ground in the mountains.
chaerophylloides - 'to please.' Huh? I know this species was named after Chaerophyllum, since it resembles that related species, but "chaero-" has still got me confused. I'm going to need to dig further.
Clearly this matter will have to come up for further study at a later date, since I don't have the time for a fuller study right now. Holotype not specified. ;)
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