Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

As Francophiles everywhere prepare to celebrate Bastille Day next month, the latest issue of Huntia kicks off the celebration with three articles featuring French botanical history as the botanists deal with the emerging idea of the natural system. Roger L. Williams introduces us to Antoine Gouan and his student, Guérin, and their plant lists. Gouan listed the species he planted around Montpellier between 1767 and 1772 in an attempt to re-vegetate the deforested area, and Guérin listed the species he found in the late 1770s during the first major botanical exploration of Mont Ventoux. While Gouan stubbornly adhered to the Linnaean sexual method, Augustin Augier created a diagram to represent the natural system. Nils Petter Hellström, Gilles André and Marc Philippe offer insight into Augier's botanical tree with transcriptions and translations of a letter he sent to the National Institute in Paris in 1801 and an article he published in Valence in 1809. Embracing A.-L. de Jussieu's natural method, A.-P. de Candolle designed his 1804 dissertation to test Jussieu's theory that plants in a natural family would possess similar medicinal virtues. Roger L. Williams describes Candolle's findings. While in the fourth article we leave France to travel to the Rock Mountains in the United States, we follow the underlying theme of this issue, botanists and their students. Roger L. Williams details the life, publications and plant lists of Edwin Payson, student of Aven Nelson.

We are currently seeking submissions for volume 17. However, with volume 17 Huntia will be going fully digital with new issues available as PDFs on our Web site as the back issues currently are. Going digital means we will be able to publish color images and to publish more frequently. Topics and submission guidelines are available on the Huntia page.