Utah plant types—historical perspective 1840 to 1981—annotated list, and bibliography

Reviewed are the 144 collectors and 167 authors of 1073 Utah vascular plant types for the period from 1840 to 1981. Historical perspective yields evidence of geography of collection activities by botanists who penetrated the boundaries of the state, and of shifting centers of emphasis in the study of Utah plants from a classical taxonomic standpoint. Philosophy and influence of contemporary authors and collectors is discussed as they affect taxonomy of Utah plants in our first 142 years. A short biographical account of Marcus Eugene Jones and his interaction with other American botanists is included. The annotated checklist includes bibliographical citations, type locality data, collector, and place of deposition

Rhodora

Index v.1-50 (1953

Botanical Resource Use in the Bronze and Iron Age of the Central Eurasian Mountain/Steppe Interface: Decision Making in Multiresource Pastoral Economies

This dissertation examines botanical resources as components of Central Asian economies in the Bronze: ca. 2500 - 800 B.C.) and Iron Ages: ca. 800 B.C. - A.D. 500) using a paleoethnobotanical data set from four archaeological sites, Begash, Mukri, Tasbas, and Tuzusai. These sites are located in the Semirech\u27ye region of eastern Kazakhstan, and they occupy distinctive microenvironmental zones along the mountain and steppe boundaries; furthermore, they show a great deal of material cultural similarity and are placed into the same culture groups by researchers. The introduction of macrobotanical studies to Central Asian archaeology allows for a critique of former models of economy. This dissertation is divided into three economic foci, agriculture, pastoralism, and exchange. First, I look at the role of wild plants as herd forage, specifically focusing on how resource patchiness helped shape social systems and networks. Then, I look at the role agriculture played at different sites and how this role changed over time. Finally, I discuss the role exchange played in the spread of domesticated plants and products such as textiles and grains. Agriculture: In this dissertation, I demonstrate that domesticated grains: broomcorn millet and compact free-threshing wheat) were present in the economy of the region as far back as the Late Bronze Age: 2200 cal B.C.). However, the role of these domesticates and the means of their acquisition are poorly understood. By the Late Bronze Age at the site of Tasbas: 1400 cal B.C.), full-scale agriculture was being practiced; specifically cultivating semispherical split-apex naked barley, highly-compact free-threshing wheat, broomcorn millet, possibly foxtail millet, and peas. The Iron Age transition in this region was marked by major social and demographic shifts, starting around 800 B.C. This dissertation helps to provide a direct causal link between these sociopolitical changes and the intensification of agriculture: following a Boserupian model). The inhabitants of sites such as Tuzusai, on the Talgar alluvial fan, shifted their economy more toward agricultural pursuits and away from mobile pastoralism. The incorporation of new agricultural resources, such as new varieties of wheat, hulled barley, and grapes marks this shift, which was also accompanied by possible intensification through irrigation and crop diversification. The shift toward agriculture was not uniform throughout Semirech\u27ye; at sites such as Begash and Mukri, economies were much more herd animal-based. Occupants of these sites may have cultivated small-scale, low-investment plots of broomcorn and foxtail millet, crops much more adaptive to a mobile pastoral economy. Pastoralism: The pastorally-focused economy of these areas relied on forage for herd animals located in orographically determined microenvironments: ecotopes). Herd movement and foraging patterns are also discussed in this dissertation based on the seed composition of burnt dung. The wild seeds in the assemblage indicate that herds were grazed in small forage-rich ecological pockets, rather than on the steppe proper. This system of focused herd grazing is still used today. Focusing economic activities on these pockets means that, while overall population was low, it was localized in specific locations. These pockets became nodes in a network of interaction and exchange across the region, providing locations for winter communal encampment and social meeting spots. Exchange: By the second millennium B.C. an exchange network had formed, connecting populations in South Asia to people in western China through a system of exchange, linked by mountain valleys. Goods such as metal ore, horses, and textiles were exchanged. This corridor of exchange seems to have brought agricultural technology from China southwest into South Asia and southwest Asian crops into China. By the Late Bronze Age a specific package of agricultural crops had formed across the entire mountain corridor. The increased exchange and interaction that marked the Iron Age transition eventually cumulated into the Silk Road, and it brought new crops and technology into Central Asia, ultimately leading to increased social complexity and stratification

James William Helenus trail: a British naturalist in nineteenth-century Amazonia

In 1873, the British naturalist James William Helenus Trail (1851-1919) participated in the first authorized foreign commercial expedition to the Brazilian Amazon region. The exploratory mission was promoted by the "Amazon Steam Navigation Company", a British company which intended to exploit its lands in the valley of the Amazon River. Trail was commissioned to evaluate the potential of the area for timber exploitation, and to indicate additional profitable natural resources. Trail spent 17 months surveying the Amazon River and tributaries, having explored an area which extends westwards from the city of Belem to the Brazilian border with Peru. The effective logistic support provided by the Company allowed him to collect botanical and zoological material in areas not visited before by other naturalists. Trail’s collections, particularly those of plants and insects, were much praised by the various specialists who studied them and who, as a tribute to Trail, named 34 new taxa after him. When in Amazonia, Trail met the Brazilian botanist Barbosa Rodrigues, who called his attention to the diversity of Amazonian palms. Inspired by Rodrigues, Trail developed a keen interest in palm taxonomy, having described 20 new species from the copious material he collected in the region. Trail's new taxa, however, generated protests from Barbosa Rodrigues, who claimed for himself the authorship of some of the species. Trail's trip to Amazonia boosted his career in natural history, and established early in his life his reputation among the British scientific community His Amazonian collections - which include, among others groups, nearly 1,800 plant and 2,100 insect species -, together with his field observations, represent a most relevant, though largely overlooked, contribution to the historical process of the knowledge of the natural history of the region

Rice, weeds and shifting cultivation in a tropical rain forest : a study of vegetation dynamics

The study deals with the rain forest area in south-west Côte d'lvoire (Taï National Park). Descriptions are given of the area's history, agricultural practices, geology, geomorphology, soils, flora and vegetation. The shifting cultivation system based on upland rice was studied as it is practiced without land shortage and under constraints. Possible adaptations of the system to the increasing population pressure have been tested on the fields of local farmers. Special attention was paid to the dynamics of the weed population and to the competition between rice and weeds. The classifications of primary forest, secondary forest and field vegetations are based on their complete floristic composition and was carried out by tabular comparison of plot-data