ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Local Names, Global Science: The Importance of Vernacular Plant Names before Universal Nomenclature

• In Event: Dividing Nature: Classification and its Discontents

English Abstract

For many in the natural sciences, the publication of Carl Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum (1753) divides biology into two periods: one where the natural world was scientifically ordered, and a previous time that was overrun by competing provincial knowledge systems. This talk explores the period of chaos, by centering on the work of British naturalists to describe, name, and communicate the flora of their colonial territories in the early eighteenth century. While they failed to produce a universal system of classification, these botanists left behind a substantial legacy in the form of their natural science collections, such as herbaria. Using the Du Bois Herbarium as case study, this talk investigates the role of vernacular plant names in pre-Linnaean botany, using plant specimens to ground narratives of colonial science that remain elusive in other archival records of this period. Analysis of these specimens as archival material alongside scientific publications and manuscripts reveals that, in the time before Linnaeus, it was local names that provided much-needed referential stability, facilitated scientific communication, and shaped European collections and taxonomic systems. This assimilation of vernacular knowledge in a way that allowed for consistent, if specialist use, challenges modern scientific assertions of the universality and objectivity of Linnaean naming at a moment when many botanists are questioning the exclusionary and Euro-centric nature of scientific nomenclature.

Author

• Madeline Elizabeth White, Northwestern University