Academy,  1 (1869–70), 99–101.

[Review of First Book of Indian Botany, by Daniel Oliver, and Flora of Middlesex, by Henry Trimen and William T Thiselton-Dyer]

Alfred W Bennett

Genre:

Review

Publications reviewed:

Oliver 1869 Trimen and Dyer 1869

Subjects:

Botany, Biogeography, Philosophy, Imperialism, Mapping, Biological Diversity, Evolution, Geology, Lecturing, Anatomy, Education, Science Communication, Taxonomy, Textbooks

People mentioned:

George Bentham , Daniel Oliver

Institutions mentioned:

British Association , Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew

Publications cited:

Hooker 1853 , Oliver 1864


    Reports that recent developments in 'Geographical Botany' reject the 'old assumption [...] that every species has been placed by nature in the region of the earth which is best adapted for its healthy growth and rapid propagation'. Rather, the experience of 'recent colonization', as well as the work of Joseph D Hooker on insular floras and Alfred R Wallace on the differing populations of islands in the Malayan Archipelago, have drawn attention to 'the facility or difficulty of the means of communication' between the floras of different continents. (99) Notes that 'The bearing of these facts on the theory of the origin of new species by isolation and gradually increased differentations from the parent type need not be pointed out'. Botany teachers have come to 'recognise the principle that "clinical" instruction, so to speak, is as necessary in acquiring a knowledge of vegetable as of animal anatomy' and 'the lecturer must have at his command abundance of fresh specimens of the orders he is describing'. It is an 'inconvenience' that this approach is impossible in text-books. (100)



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