The Sturtevant Prelinnean library of the Missouri botanical garden.

  • Missouri Botanical Garden. Library
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Sturtevant Prelinnean library of the Missouri botanical garden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cial evolution of species is being daily effected under our eyes,* is also true, though to a less degree, of the native plants of temperate regions, since the knowledge of wild plants long antedates the period of Linnaeus; which, for practical reasons, is commonly held to mark the beginning of modern botany. In the classification of a botanical library, the modern period is usually held to begin with the introduction of binomial nomenclature in the first edition of the Species Plantarum, published by Linnaeus in 1753, and this date is, therefore, made the limit of the Prelinnean alcove, at the Garden. Linnaeus, himself, however, had published many books before this date, and these should properly form a part of the Sturtevant library; but for convenience it has seemed better to form a special group of Linneana. In attempting even so simple a task as cataloguing a col- lection of early books, greater difficulties are met with than in the case of most modern books. True, the nom deplume was less used then than now; but anonymous works were numerous, and the title of Parkinson’s Paradisus Terrestris leads to the suspicion of punning on both subject and author’s name in other cases. Frequently, also, letters or minor papers by various authors are either printed with or bound in many of the earlier books, making frequent cross references necessary. And these difficulties are greatly in- creased by the frequent use of borrowed illustrations, with- out indication of their source; the numerous editions, some- times greatly differing, sometimes with illustrations more changed than the text, printed for some of the early wri- ters ; their many commentators, often with multiple editions of their commentaries; the simultaneous publication of identical or slightly differing editions in different countries; and the recomposition of reissues of a given edition, gh iug rise almost inevitably to minor differences which, in the eyes of the bibliophile, are of considerable importance. Bailey: Science, Dec. 20, 1895, 834.
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