“Long hard-ſounding Latin name[s]”: Applying Historical Ethnobotany to the Loddiges Plant Nursery (1818–1830)
Abstract
Despite their potential, nursery stock catalogs have been overlooked in previous ethnobotanical studies. Here, this gap is addressed by surveying nursery-based plant knowledge cultivated within the historic British Loddiges nursery through an analysis of their stock catalogs dating from 1818 to 1830. Employing a historical ethnobotanical approach, the topics of categorization, nomenclature, and sourcing practices in the Loddiges nursery are examined while also exploring the methodological considerations of utilizing nursery stock catalogs in ethnobotanical research. Findings underscore the pragmatic nature of nursery-based plant knowledge, offering insight into the relationship between nurserymen and the plants they cultivated. This essay aims to clarify how sources such as stock catalogs can enrich historical ethnobotanical investigation and broaden the scope of ethnobotanical research to include topics such as commercial plant nurseries.
References
Alcorn, K. 2020. From Specimens to Commodities: the London Nursery Trade and the Introduction of Exotic Plants in the Early Nineteenth Century. Historical Research 93(262):715–733. DOI:10.1093/hisres/htaa025.
Alcorn, K. 2022. ‘His utter unfitness for a commercial collector’: Sponsorship of Exotic Plant Collecting in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain. Journal of the History of Collections 35(2):347–362. DOI:10.1093/jhc/fhac032.
Axelby, R. 2008. Calcutta Botanic Garden and the colonial re-ordering of the Indian environment. Archives of Natural History 35(1): 150-63. DOI: 10.3366/E0260954108000144.
Bohn, H. G. 1850. The Pictorial Handbook of London, 3rd ed. H. G. Bohn, London.
Borgatti, S. P. 1994. Cultural Domain Analysis. Journal of Quantitative Anthropology 4(4):261– 278. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285033455_Cultural_Domain_Analysis. Accessed on January 16, 2024.
Borgatti, S. 1998. Elicitation techniques for cultural domain analysis. In The Ethnographer’s Toolkit, edited by J. Schensul and M. LeCompte, pp. 1–44. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
Brockway, L. H. 2002. Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Garden. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Coulton, R. 2018. Curiosity, Commerce, and Conservation: Nursery-Gardens and Nurserymen in Eighteenth-century London. The London Journal 43(1):17–35. DOI:10.1080/03058034.2017.1340247.
Curtis, W. 1783. Catalogue of the British, Medicinal, Culinary, and Agricultural Plants: Cultivated in the London Botanic Garden… Sold by B. White, Sewel, Robinson, Payne and Debrett, London.
Dafni, A., T. Petanidou, I. Vallianatou, E. Kozhuharova, C. Blanché, E. Pacini, M. Peyman, Z. D. Stevanovic, G. G. Franchi, and G. Benítez. 2020. Myrtle, Basil, Rosemary, and Three-lobed Sage as Ritual Plants in the Monotheistic Religions: An Historical-Ethnobotanical Comparison. Economic Botany 74:330–355. DOI: 10.1007/s12231-019-09477-w.
DeLoughrey, E. M. 2007. Globalizing the Routes of Breadfruit and Other Bounties. Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 8(3):1–32. Available at: https://english.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/DeLoughrey-Globalizing-the-Routes-of-Breadfruit-2008.pdf. Accessed on May 20, 2024.
Harvey, J. 1974. Early Nurserymen. Phillimore, London.
Heinrich, M., J. Kufer, M. Leonti, and M. Pardo-de-Santayana. 2006. Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology—Interdisciplinary Links with the Historical Sciences. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 107:157–160. DOI:10.1016/j.jep.2006.05.035.
Kalle, R., and R. Sõukand. 2012. Historical Ethnobotanical Review of Wild Plants of Estonia (1770s–1960s). Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae 81(4):271–281. DOI:10.5586/asbp.2012.033.
Kalle, R., and Sõukand, R. 2023. Historical Ethnobotany: Interpreting the Old Records. Plants 12: 3673. DOI:10.3390/plants12213673.
Keogh, L. 2020. The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Loddiges, C. 1777. A Catalogue of Plants and Seeds which are Sold by Conrad Loddiges, Nursery and Seedsman, at Hackney, near London… C. Heydinger, London.
Loddiges, C. 1787. A Catalogue of Plants and Seeds Which are Sold by Conrad Loddiges, Nursery and Seedsman, at Hackney, near London… Printed for the author, London.
Medeiros, M. F. T. 2010. Historical Ethnobotany: An Approach through Historical Documents and their Implications Nowadays. In Recent Developments and Case Studies in Ethnobotany, edited by U. P. de Albuquerque and N. Hanazaki, pp. 87–99. NUPEEA & SBEE, Recife.
Medeiros, M. F. T. 2016. Historical Ethnobiology. In Introduction to Ethnobiology, edited by U. P. Albuquerque and R. Nóbrega Alves, pp. 19–24. Springer, New York.
Medeiros, M. F. T. 2020. Historical Ethnobiology. Elsevier, Cambridge.
Nelson, E., and E. Oliver. 2004. Cape Heaths in European Gardens: The Early History of South African Erica Species in Cultivation, their Deliberate Hybridization and the Orthographic Bedlam. Bothalia 34(2):127–140. DOI:10.4102/abc.v34i2.427.
OED (Oxford English Dictionary). 2022. “nursery, n. and adj.”. OED Online. Oxford University Press.
Pardo-de-Santayana, M., J. Tardío, M. Heinrich, A. Touwaide, and R. Morales. 2006. Plants in the Works of Cervantes. Economic Botany 60(2):159–81. DOI:10.1663/0013-0001(2006)60[159:PITWOC]2.0.CO;2.
Parkinson, J. 1629. Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris. H. Lownes & R. Young, London.
Petran, M., D. Dragos, and M. Gilca. 2020. Historical Ethnobotanical Review of Medicinal Plants Used to Treat Children Diseases in Romania (1860s–1970s). Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 16(15):1–33. DOI:10.1186/s13002-020-00364-6.
Sangwan, S. 1992. Natural History in Colonial Context: Profit or Pursuit? British Botanical Enterprise in India 1778–1820. In Science and Empires, edited by P. Petitjean, C. Jami, and A. M. Moulin, pp. 281–298. Springer, Dordrecht.
Silva, T. C., Medeiros, P. M., Balcazár, A. L., Sousa Araújo, T. A., Pirondo, A. and M. F. T. Medeiros. 2014. Historical ethnobotany: An Overview of Selected Studies. Ethnobiology and Conservation 3(4):1–12. DOI:10.15451/ec2014-6-3.4-1-12.
Solman, D. 1995. Loddiges of Hackney: The Largest Hothouse in the World. The Hackney Society, London.
Stafleu, F. A. and Cowan, R. S. 1981. Taxonomic Literature: A Selective Guide to Botanical Publications and Collections with Dates, Commentaries and Types. Scheltema & Holkema, Bohn.
Thomas, A. 2006. The Establishment of Calcutta Botanic Garden: Plant Transfer, Science and the East India Company, 1786–1806. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 16(2), 165–177. DOI: 10.1017/S1356186306005992.
Vogl, C. R. and R. K. Puri. 2004. Tools and Methods for Data Collection in Ethnobotanical Studies of Homegardens. Field Methods 16(3):285–306. DOI:10.1177/1525822X04266844.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ethyn Maki
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content and grant Ethnobiology Letters (the “Journal”) and the Society of Ethnobiology right of first publication. Authors and the Journal agree that Ethnobiology Letters will publish the article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits others to use, distribute, and reproduce the work non-commercially, provided the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly cited.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
For any reuse or redistribution of a work, users must make clear the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
In publishing with Ethnobiology Letters corresponding authors certify that they are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements. They warrant, on behalf of themselves and their co-authors, that the content is original, has not been formally published, is not under consideration, and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights. They further warrant that the material contains no matter that is scandalous, obscene, libelous, or otherwise contrary to the law.
Corresponding authors will be given an opportunity to read and correct edited proofs, but if they fail to return such corrections by the date set by the editors, production and publication may proceed without the authors’ approval of the edited proofs.
