History Commons^™

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 …

The Planted Catalog: The Role Of The Botanical Garden In Botany, Douglas Tuers

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

This article will investigate the role of the botanical garden in botany. What its role is and how it fills it. This article will take the Missouri Botanical Garden as a case study, drawing heavily from archival material compromised mostly of letters between Henry Shaw and the prominent botanists of his day. This study also draws on the prominent histories of the Missouri Botanical Garden. The analysis use the philosophical tradition around reference in logic and language. This study argues that the botanical garden is a bridge between locality and herbaria. The order of the flora travels to the locality …

The Found World: The Role Of Findability In The History Of Botany, Douglas Tuers

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

This study will investigate how a community of botanists used the findability inherent in botanical localities to rediscover species that were previously lost to botany. This article will look at the literature that announced the rediscovery of three species in the vicinity of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. These species are Heuchera hispida, Phlox buckleyi, and Gaylussacia brachycera. These three plants were rediscovered over a short period of time, about 13 years from 1919 to 1932. This study will draw from the announcement of these rediscoveries. In each of these cases there was a surrounding literature that …

The Bioethical Significance Of “The Origin Of Man’S Ethical Behavior” (October 1941, Unpublished) By Ernest Everett Just And Hedwig Anna Schnetzler Just, Theodore Walker Jr.

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Abstract –

E. E. Just (1883-1941) is an acknowledged “pioneer” in cell biology, and he is perhaps the pioneer in study of egg cell fertilization. Here we discover that Just also made pioneering contributions to general biology and evolutionary bioethics.

Within Just’s published contributions to observational cell biology, there are substantial fragments of his theory of ethical behavior, a theory with roots in cell biology. In addition to such previously available fragments, Just’s fully developed theory is now available. This recently discovered unpublished book-length manuscript argues for the biological origins of ethical behavior (evolving from cells to humans, within a …

A Very Glabrate Form!: How A Diminutive Plant Enthralled Botanists On Both Sides Of The Atlantic, Douglas Tuers

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Spanning over the 19^th and 20^th centuries the great botanists of America and Europe fought to resolve the taxonomy of Clematis ovata Pursh. The taxonomic moves that took place in the debate between the early 1800’s and the 1960’s support six meta-statements. 1. The botany practiced throughout this story eventually required an attention to the geology of shale-barrens from botanists beginning with Edward Steele. 2. This story requires a few amendments to Weldon Boone’s three causes for the botanical celebrity of Kate’s Mountain. 3. Kate’s Mountain acted as a proto-repository for shale barren endemics. 4. The botanists in …