Feedback request: Cochlearia officinalis (21595)

[Mike d'Apice]

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Specimen #289981

Taxon:	Brassicaceae: Cochlearia officinalis L. ("Common Scurvygrass")
Filed in taxon folder:	Brassicaceae: Cochlearia officinalis L. ("Common Scurvygrass")
Collected by:	John Gilbert Baker
Collection date:	6/1853
Locality:	Great Britain, VC62 North-east Yorkshire, Castle Hill Scarborough,Scarborough,Castle Hill, TA0589, "Littoral midagrarian."
ex herb:	Prof George Stephen West
Institution:	University of Birmingham (BIRM)
Image:
fruits/flowers:	seeds/fruits
notes:	1. Flowers/buds at apices of racemes. 2. Re "Littoral midagrarian":- This a 'geognostic' binomial: The first part is always indicative of habitat; the second (Watsonian), bioclimatic.

Documented by mikedaps on 19^th February 2010.

Checked by qgroom

Edit history

date	user	change
20/02/2010	mikedaps	Deleted locality: GB VC62 Scarborough, "Near the hill"
20/02/2010	mikedaps	Added locality: GB VC62 Castle Hill Scarborough,Scarborough,Castle Hill, "Lithral midagrarian"(?) TA0589 (place)
20/02/2010	mikedaps	Added collector: John Gilbert Baker
21/02/2010	mikedaps	Deleted note: Flowers/buds at apices of racemes.
21/02/2010	mikedaps	Added note: 1. Flowers/buds at apices of racemes. 2. Re "Littoral midagrarian":- This a 'geognostic' binomial: The first part is always indicative of habitat; the second (Watsonian), bioclimatic.
21/02/2010	mikedaps	Deleted locality: GB VC62 Castle Hill Scarborough,Scarborough,Castle Hill, "Lithral midagrarian"(?) TA0589 (place)
21/02/2010	mikedaps	Added locality: GB VC62 Castle Hill Scarborough,Scarborough,Castle Hill, "Littoral midagrarian." TA0589 (place)

N.B. reporting of the edit history is currently fairly unclear and misleading. Most edits made to specimens appear as a pair of 'add' and 'delete' entries, which may not be together in the list. There are also often 'minor' edits, which are made automatically (rather than due to user activity), for example to merge synonym names.

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User comments about this sheet

mikedaps wrote

The collector looks like John S Deker but can't trace a John Deker or Daker. Any ideas who it might be? Likewise can't make sense of the second line either "Lithral midepassan" or is it some sort of geological term??? Finally looks like 6/53 and also 6/83 I guess the former but...

[mossysal]

John Gilbert Baker: 13/1/1834-16/8/1920
Lithral midagrarian I think - somewhere there is a message from Wonastow relating to these terms but can't bring it to mind just now
Scarborough Castle Hill
6/53 I would guess - as he was born in '34!

[Mike d'Apice]

Many thanks: Now clear and indeed he seems to have been busy collecting in the NE in 53 before heading South. Re the "agrarian" yes recall but not yet traced the references to this sort of term - soil type I think. Amended. Mike d'A

[David Price]

Littoral midagrarian. The first part of these 'geognostic' binomials is always indicative of habitat; the second (Watsonian), bioclimatic.

Baker was a Yorkshireman who took a post at Kew aged 32. Before that he ran the Thirsk Botanical Exchange Club whose forerunner was the Botanical Society of London; and whose successor, the London BEC.

[Mike d'Apice]

Thanks Wonastow, amended.

Curiosity: After some unsuccessful, albeit brief, googling and a scan through old ecology/soil science books dismally failed to unearth any details of the system - assume the Watson is the VC author... Can you suggests any references / links that can describe itfurther? Thanks again. Mike d'A

[David Price]

See Watson's Cybele Britannica. I have no link but Painter's 'Flora of Derbyshire' pp 3 & 4 at
http://www.archive.org/stream/contributiontofl00painrich#page/2/mode/2up
and chapter II Climatology of Baker's 'North Yorkshire http://books.google.com/books?output=text&id=M78HAAAAQAAJ&q=flazendale#v=onepage&q=chapter%20II&f=false
at p 36 will give you the gist.

David

[Mike d'Apice]

Many thanks for the links - The notes on labels now make sense! For info found Vol 3 of Cybele Britannica complete, with numerous application if no explanation of the method, on google books at
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rAlBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cybele+Britannica&source=bl&ots=nID41XmJPD&sig=cLeCCnM52C2susHZsZ4lWtpmdq8&hl=en&ei=Go2CS5n2HJ720wS3zM2rBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Regards Mike d'A

[David Price]

....... and Chris Liffen has kindly supplied a link to the whole work
http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924001689326#page/n5/mode/2up

[Mike d'Apice]

Many thanks - aside from the practical utility for H@H, I find myself pondering how on earth the 19thC Botanists managed to achieve so much when travelling 20miles must have been a serious undertaking for the collectors and how Watson et al could compile the likes of Cybele Britannica, the County floras etc from these travels, their correspondence and what must have been vast paper based records or truely encyclopaedic knowledge of their subjects.... Regards. Mike d'A