The Manufacture of Species: Kew Gardens, the Empire and the Standardisation of Taxonomic Practices in late 19th century Botany

Christophe Bonneuil (1)

1 CAK-CRHST - Centre Alexandre Koyré - Centre de Recherche en Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques

This paper is about the creation of universals and the maintenance of order in the field of systematic botany during the age of empire. It explores how the practice of broadly circumscribing species, or in other words, the broad and variable species concept, became dominant in the practice of taxonomy in the second half of the nineteenth century, and how such broad species were established and given authority. By the mid-nineteenth century, it seemed that no consensus could ever be reached between botanists concerning the delimitation of species and how this should be done, not to mention more ontological issues opposing evolutionists and creationists. A tremendous controversy arose between those who adopted a broad species concept — “splitters” — and those who preferred narrowly delimited species — “lumpers”. At the methodological level moreover, the right criterion to distinguish a “true species” from a mere variety was hotly debated between those who valued the study of living plants, and those who valued the comparison of dried forms. Finally, by the 1880's and 1890's, professional botanists working in huge herbaria (especially at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens near London) had largely impose their views: a) the broadly-circumscribed species (and genera) became the standard for the delimitation of species (and genera); b) the herbarium was recognised as being the essential tool of the taxonomist (rather than field observations or garden cultivation) and the comparison of dried specimens became the major criterion for deciding the circumscription of species; c) a particular nomenclatural practice known as the ‘Kew-rule', where the original specific epithet is not necessarily conserved when the plant is transferred to another genus, was widely followed. This chapter examines how these three norms for species naming and delimitation came to rule taxonomic practices in the second half of the nineteenth century, and why they appeared, to such leading professional systematic botanists as Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911), George Bentham (1800-1884), Alphonse de Candolle (1806-1893) and Asa Gray (1810-1888), as the only way to maintain order in the field of botanical knowledge, to ensure its progress and epistemic steadiness, and restore its declining status in the hierarchy of disciplines.

Mots clés: ‘Kew-rule; Botany; Taxonomy; species concept; Colonial empires; Kew Royal Botanic Gardens; ‘Kew-rule'; Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911); George Bentham (1800-1884); Alphonse de Candolle (1806-1893); Asa Gray (1810-1888)

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences; Botanique

Christophe Bonneuil. The Manufacture of Species: Kew Gardens, the Empire and the Standardisation of Taxonomic Practices in late 19th century Botany. M.-N. Bourguet, C. Licoppe et O. Sibum. Instruments, Travel and Science. Itineraries of precision from the 17th to the 20th century, Routledge, pp.189-215, 2002. ⟨hal-00179456⟩