A Catalogue of British Plants Arranged According to the Natural System
With the Synonyms of De Candolle, Smith, and Lindley

Originally published between 1829 and 1851, these papers represent some of the supporting material from Henslow's Cambridge botanical lectures.

John Stevens Henslow (Author)

9781108061728, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 September 2013

80 pages
21.6 x 14 x 0.5 cm, 0.11 kg

In 1829, botany had much to prove. A prominent lecturer, John Lindley, noted that 'it has been very much the fashion of late years, in this country, to undervalue the importance of this science, and to consider it an amusement for ladies rather than an occupation for the serious thoughts of man'. In the three documents reissued here, Cambridge botany professor John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861) demonstrates the exacting standards of his course. The work contains an 1829 catalogue of British plants, the skeleton structure of sixteen lectures for 1833 and an 1851 list of potential examination questions. Students were expected to differentiate between 'an indefinite and a definite inflorescence', to recognise 'albuminous seeds', and describe 'nectariferous appendages'. With a strongly Linnaean approach to taxonomy, this collection offers researchers a window into the growth of academic botany prior to the revolution occasioned by Stevens' pupil, Charles Darwin.

1. A catalogue of British plants
2. Sketch of a course of lectures on botany
3. Questions on the subject-matter of sixteen lectures in botany.

Subject Areas: Botany & plant sciences [PST]