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A Most Surprising Fern: Serendipity And Browsing In Botanical Search, Douglas Tuers

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

This article is a case study of botanical field work in the eastern United States in the early twentieth century. These cases will be analyzed as instances of browsing and serendipity. Browsing and serendipity have a rich literature in information science and this article will draw on this literature in order to better understand serendipity in botany. This article will show how botanical localities support browsing and serendipity for the botanists who search them. This article will also show how botanical institutions and botanists interface with localities in order to further support browsing and serendipity. As a whole this article …