Earliest Specialists
with Araceae
Schott
Although a number of
botanists, in addition to Linnaeus, worked with Araceae prior
to the early 19th Century, Heinrich Wilhelm Schott was the earliest
to specialize almost exclusively with Araceae. He began his studies
in the late 1820s and continued until his death. Schott was born
January 7, 1794, in Brünn (Brno), Moravia (now the Czech
Republic). His father was the gardener for the botanical garden
of the University of Vienna and Schott had early contact with
well known botanists, including J. N. and F. J. Jacquin. It was
the latter who recommended the young Schott for a position on
a trip to Brazil. While in Brazil from mid-1817 through 1821,
Schott established and managed an introduction garden, made field
trips, and prepared many notes concerning the plants and animals
he saw. In 1845 he became Director of the Imperial Gardens at
Schöbrunn palace in Vienna, succeeding N. J. Jacquin who
had amassed a large collection of tropical aroids (Nicolson, 1987b).
Schott remained at Schöbrunn until his death on March 5,
1865.
Schott's role in the
Araceae would be difficult to surpass. He described most of the
larger genera, including over one-third of those genera currently
in use. Schott's work began with a series of short papers on Araceae
(Schott, 1820, 1827, 1829a-g, 1830a-e) which he published as a
series entitled "Für Liebhaber der Botanik" in
a trade magazine entitled "Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst,
Literatur und Mode" [see also Anonymous, 1865]. Later he
published a longer paper (Schott, 1832) in which he treated almost
40 genera, recognizing taxa at sectional and subfamilial levels.
This paper was the first to deal at any serious level with aroid
systematics. Following this paper, there was a 21-year hiatus
in which he published only a few, short, relatively unimportant
papers (Schott, 1851, 1852). However, rather than being inactive,
Schott had been preparing his system of classification, commissioning
drawings and paintings, and otherwise refining his classification
system. Between 1853 and 1857 Schott published the first of his
summary works, Aroideae (Schott, 1853-1857) which consisted
of 60 plates. It was followed by his Synopsis Aroidearum
(Schott, 1856) and Genera Aroidearum (Schott, 1858a), and
finally by the Prodromus Systematis Aroidearum (Schott,
1860). He also published a series of lithographs in four fascicles
(Schott, 1857-1858). During this very active period of his career,
Schott also published a long series of very short, relatively
less important papers (Schott, 1853a-c, 1854a-e, 1855a-g, 1857a-z,aa-nn,
1858b-i, 1859a-f, 1861, 1862a-d, 1863, 1864a-c, 1865a, 1865b).
Most of these articles were published in the Oersterichisches
Botanisches Wochenblatt, a technical serial that appeared
at a rate of sometimes more than one per week. In the year 1857,
43 Schott articles on Araceae were published!
The Prodromus
brought his system of classification to a conclusion. Although
Schott's herbarium collections (totaling 1379 specimens) were
destroyed by fire shortly after the end of World War II, his incredibly
detailed drawings of Araceae [commissioned by Schott], the Icones
Aroidearum, remained and are now housed at the Vienna Natural
History Museum. This set of 3400 line drawings (mostly herbarium
specimens) and paintings of living collections were only partially
published during Schott's lifetime. Only a few of the illustrations
appeared in some of his works (Schott, 1853-1857; 1879a) but a
complete microfiche edition of these illustrations has now been
published (Schott, 1884) largely through the efforts of H. Riedl
and D. H. Nicolson. One fascicle of plates containing Lasieae
is lacking even today. In all, Schott described and named 587
species new to science. Among generic names still in use, he published
37 with an additional genus for which he made the transfer and
still another for which he was the author of the basionym. No
other aroid taxonomist has come close to Schott's record at the
generic level; Engler described eight still accepted genera and
the only other competitors, Carl Lineaus and N. E. Brown, each
have six currently recognized genera.
Contemporaries
of Schott
Schott had few contemporaries
during his life who worked with Araceae, if only for a time. Foremost
among these was Karl Sigismund Kunth, whose first publication
(Kunth, 1818) dealing with observations on the genera of Araceae,
even predated the work of Schott. Near the close of his career,
Kunth published three short papers on Araceae (Kunth, 1841a, 1841b,
1842), and one large work, his Enumeratio Plantarum (1941a).
The latter work alone described 90 new taxa. In all, he published
as new or re-combined, 134 species of Araceae, more than any other
aroid worker did in his time. Other of Schott's contemporaries
who dealt with Araceae include Karl Ludwig Blume, a German botanist
employed by the Dutch, who published significant papers dealing
with Asian, principally Malesian aroids (Blume, 1827, 1834, 1836-1837).
Otto Kuntze produced an encyclopedic treatment of the Araceae
in conjunction with his much broader work dealing with all families
(Kuntze, 1891). A similar encyclopedic account was produced by
C. Mueller (Mueller, 1858). Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré
(1826) published accounts of the Araceae collected on the voyage
of M. Louis de Freycinet. D. N. F. Dietrich (1852) in his Synopsis
Plantarum produced the last revision of Linnaeus's Species
Plantarum. K. F. P. von Martius wrote a paper dealing with
a number of morphological aspects of Araceae (Martius, 1831).
Koch
Perhaps more significant
from the standpoint of Araceae was Karl Koch, a Berlin botanist
whose first publication on Araceae (Koch, 1852, 1856) appears
to have shocked Schott (who had obviously been slowly and meticulously
accumulating information on Araceae without publishing it) into
publication. Koch seemed to have a primary interest in Araceae
but apparently did not have the depth of understanding possessed
by Schott. Koch published mostly short articles (1852), sometimes
including new species descriptions in gardening magazines such
as Allgemeine Gartenzeitung (1857a-k) and Wochenschrift
für Gärtnerei und Pflanzenkunde (1859, 1861, 1868;
Koch & Veitch, 1863). Other new species were described in
the seed lists of the Berlin Botanical Garden (Koch, 1853, 1854,
1855). Many of Koch's descriptions were based on cultivated plant
material, often of unknown origin. From the standpoint of the
taxonomy of Araceae, it is tragic that all of his herbarium material
was lost by war action; thus, in many cases it is now not possible
to determine what he dealt with. Moreover, since Koch was one
of the earliest aroid taxonomists many of his plant names are
still valid. In all, Karl Koch described or re-combined 156 taxa.
Engler
Schott was followed by
the even more prodigious worker, Adolf Engler, who was born in
1844 [see biography by Diels (1931)]. Engler was 21 years old
at the time of Schott's death and produced his first major publications
in 1876 (Engler, 1876a-b), 11 years after Schott's death, while
working at the Munich Botanical Garden. His first works entitled
"Zur Morphologie der Araceen" (Engler, 1876a) and "Vergleichende
Untersuchungen über die morphologischen Verhältnisse
der Araceae" (Engler, 1876b) and several others (Engler,
1877, 1881b, 1883a, 1883c, 1884; Ray & Renner, 1990) dealt
with development and emphasized one of Engler's major strengths,
a good understanding of the anatomy, morphology and developmental
processes in the Araceae. These fields were critical to the development
of his system of classification (Engler, 1889a, 1889b).
Among Engler's earlier
works was his treatment of the Araceae for Martius's Flora
Brasiliensis (Engler, 1878a [other works, see below]). In
this work Engler made the first modifications of the taxonomic
system previously proposed by Schott. His treatment of the Araceae
in A. & C. de Candolle's "Monographie Phanerogamarum"
(Engler, 1879) followed shortly thereafter, and before the turn
of the century, he had published a complete revision of Anthurium
(Engler, 1898b [see also errata in Engler, 1898c]), Philodendron
(Engler, 1899a), and Dieffenbachia (Engler, 1899b). He
also published a number of papers (mostly in a series of papers
entitled "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Araceae") describing
miscellaneous genera and species, including those from America
(Engler, 1978b, 1881a, 1885), from Africa (Engler, 1892, 1899c,
1905d, 1917; Engler & Krause, 1914, 1917); and from Asia (Engler,
1887b, 1889a, 1898a, 1901b, 1907; Engler & Krause, 1912, 1916a,
1916b, 1921, 1922). Some papers deal with Araceae worldwide (Engler,
1883b, 1883c, 1905b) or deal with more than one area, such as
Africa and Asia (Engler, 1880, 1898a, 1898b), or Asia and America
(Engler & Krause, 1916a, 1916b). Other papers describe the
new genera Protarum (Engler, 1901a), and Ulearum
(Engler, 1905c). Engler prepared descriptions (Engler, 1883a)
of Araceae in a discussion of plants collected by O. Beccari in
Malesia and Papua New Guinea. Engler also published a major work
on the phytogeography of the Araceae (Engler, 1909).
Aside from the major
floristic work done for Brazil (Engler, 1878a) Engler conducted
few floristic works. Exceptions are treatments that he did for
other workers including Pittier (1898) for Costa Rica (Engler,
1900) and for J. Schmidt's Flora of Koh Chang (Engler,
1902). He also prepared descriptions of Araceae collected by O.
Beccari in Malesia and Papua New Guinea (Engler, 1883a).
Although Engler's work
was much more diverse than Schott's and involved many families,
it can be said that Engler was, at heart, an aroid taxonomist.
As Director of the Berlin School of Botany he directed and advised
many other botanists and was responsible for the production of
such works as Das Pflanzenreich and Die natürlichen
Pflanzenfamilien, the latter prepared with Karl Anton Eugen
Prantl. The Araceae treatment for this latter work was done by
Engler (1887) himself. Engler apparently had much more material
available than Schott had seen but he seems to have paid little
attention to living material. Before his death in 1930 Engler
prepared new revisions for all of the Araceae, down to the species
level (Engler, 1905d, 1908, 1911, 1912, 1915, 1920a, 1920c; Engler
& Krause, 1908, 1920). Many of these are still in use today
and many are still the most recent taxonomic revisions. In all,
he described more than 1100 taxa at or below the specific level.
By the end of Engler's career the number of known species of Araceae
had risen to 1800 from the 900 known at the time of Schott (Mayo
et al., in press).
Brown
Though playing a minor
role compared to Engler, his contemporary, N. E. Brown also made
important contributions to the study of Araceae. His long tenure
at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew left the herbarium literally
spattered with his penciled notes on taxonomic problems with specimens.
Included among these hand-written notes are tracings of Karl Koch's
herbarium in Berlin (now lost). The interpretations and careful
notes of N. E. Brown showed that he had a depth of understanding
about many serious taxonomic problems that still face taxonomists
today and his notes are still immensely useful. Brown also participated
in the production of Araceae treatments for floristic works such
as the Flora of Tropical Africa (Brown, 1901), described
new genera (Brown, 1882a) and numerous new species (Brown, 1880,
1886, 1903, 1912, 1913). In all, Brown published a total of six
genera still in use and 135 new taxa.
Krause
Kurt Krause, who began
working with Engler on January 1, 1905, was responsible for a
few other small families in Das Pflanzenreich but soon
became interested in the Araceae. He was assigned the task of
revising Engler's 1899 treatment of Philodendron for Das
Pflanzenreich (Krause, 1913) but aside from describing some
new species (Krause, 1910, 1911a, 1911b, 1912, 1914a, 1914b, 1921,
1922, 1924a, 1925, 1927), he made few changes to the treatment.
Together with Engler, he was responsible for the writing of the
Das Pflanzenreich treatments of the Monsteroideae (Engler
& Krause, 1908), Philodendroideae-Philodendrineae (Krause,
1913), and Colocasioideae (Engler & Krause, 1920); however,
Krause completed the Calloideae alone (Krause, 1908). Active for
some years after Engler's retirement, Krause published additional
species after Engler's death (Krause, 1930, 1932a, 1932b, 1940,
1941, 1942; Krause & van Alderwerelt, 1924, 1927). In all
Krause was responsible for describing 124 taxa and another 75
species in conjunction with Engler.
Sodiro
Luis Sodiro, working
at the turn of the century, described more than 281 taxa of Ecuadorian
Araceae, mostly Anthurium, but also included one Heteropsis,
six Rhodospatha and 15 Stenospermation (Sodiro,
1900, 1901a, 1901b, 1903, 1905a, 1905b, 1905c, 1906, 1907, 1908a,
1908b). Sodiro was the first botanist working with Araceae who
could be considered a true field botanist and he spent most of
his botanical career in the tropics of Ecuador. Born in Italy,
Sodiro joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and served in Ecuador
until the time of his death. Working from the monastery at Cotocallao,
now in the suburbs of modern Quito, Sodiro explored most of the
area around Quito, especially the nearby slopes of Volcán
Pichincha. His descriptions of Araceae were the first ever to
show excellent detail, thereby making it apparent that the descriptions
were prepared from live material or from copious field notes.
Unfortunately, Sodiro had no concept of types and did not even
number his collections. Another major impediment to studying Sodiro's
material is that many of his first set of collections remain deposited
in the herbarium of the Biblioteca Aurelio Pólit (QPLS)
where the specimens are not available to be borrowed for study.
For this reason many of his species names remain poorly known.
Sodiro's publications
are also troublesome because he frequently published the same
species several times, sometimes making only slight changes in
the manuscript from earlier versions. Dan Nicolson (1984a) has
made a definitive study of Sodiro's publications and one must
refer to it when dealing with Sodiro's collections. Despite these
difficulties, the contributions made by Luis Sodiro were the greatest
that ever have been made by any resident on the South American
continent. Had he had time to extend his studies to other genera,
especially Philodendron, it is impossible to imagine what
his contribution might have been.