The contribution made by Martinus Houttuyn (1720-1798) to systematic botany has been widely underestimated. Fourteen volumes of the second part of his Natuurlijke Historie of Uitvoerige Beschrijving der Dieren, Planten en Mineraalen, published between 1773 and 1783, dealt with botany. Houttuyn popularized the Linnaean system and published more than 150 species and several genera. The historical context of this early botanical work is described. The history of the acquisition of Houttuyn's herbarium is outlined and an English translation of his auction catalogue is provided. We discuss Houttuyn's exotic herbaria from the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Java (Indonesia), and Japan. Houttuyn did not go abroad to collect plants. His herbarium consisted of material from many collectors, with the vast majority of specimens collected by Thunberg, but collections were also made by Auge, Radermacher, Richter, and possibly von Wurmb, while material from unknown collectors is also present. The main set of Houttuyn herbarium, which proves to be present in the Geneva herbarium, was originally part of the Burman herbarium bought by Delessert in 1801 on the advice of Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle. It is now incorporated in the Pre-Linnaean herbarium (G-PREL). Much smaller sets from Java are present in Leiden (L) and Amsterdam (AMD, now in L). In many cases Houttuyn described new species on the basis of Thunberg specimens before Linnaeus f. or Thunberg did, whose identical but later names are based on the specimens in their own herbaria, and although some might consider these to be homonyms, we regard them as isonyms because their types are duplicates of the same gatherings. A selection of 111 names are discussed, most of which were published by Houttuyn in the Natuurlijke Historie. Others are linked to Burman, Thunberg, Linnaeus f. or A.-P. de Candolle. A total of 57 lectotypes and one epitype are designated.
Giovanni Casaretto (1810-1879) was appointed by King Charles Albert of Savoy-Carignano, Kingdom of Sardinia, as the botanist and mineralogist of a planned circumnavigation of the globe. After collecting in a few localities in southern Brazil and Uruguay, Casaretto collected for almost nine months, from April to December 1839, in Rio de Janeiro and its vicinity. While in Rio, he also bought about 100 collections from Riedel and about 500 collections from Clausen, which were made in the states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Minas Gerais, which he re-numbered and integrated into his collections. He also made significant collections in the state of Bahia, and a few collections in and around Recife (Pernambuco). Based on the preceding collections, Casaretto published a total of 101 names (in 36 plant families, delimited according to APG III), of which, according to the present study, 27 names are currently accepted, 12 serve as basionyms for currently accepted names, 7 are illegitimate due to superfluity, and 55 are heterotypic synonyms of previously published names. All the 101 names of Casaretto are hereby typified, and Eugenia casarettoana Delprete is here proposed as a substitute name for an illegitimate later homonym. In addition, a lectotype and an epitype for Couratari estrellensis Raddi are here designated.
Nicolaas Laurens Burman (1734 -1793) treated in his Flora Indica 69 pteridophyte names. Most of those names were described earlier by Carl Linnaeus (1707 -1778) who was a friend of his father Johannes Burman (1706 -1779). The Flora Indica (1768) is one of those early works that followed Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature formalized in 1753. N.L. Burman described 25 new ferns in this work. His herbarium is now stored as a separate historical collection at Geneva with the acronym G-PREL. We located all original material in G-PREL, with the goal to review the taxonomic identity and nomenclature of those 25 names. We also studied the Paul Hermann herbarium from Ceylon, bound in a folio volume now kept in the library of the Institut de France in Paris with the acronym BIF-CEYL, which was the main base of Johannes Burman's Thesaurus Zeylanicus (1737). Lectotypes are designated for twelve names lacking proper typification:
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.