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Kent Ethnobotany: tracking literature on the Web
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This is a page of useful links for Ethnobotany MSc students in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent. Botanical and ethnobotanical literature is increasingly available on the Web: these pages offer pointers on locating citations and (more usefully) getting hold of books or papers once you know of them.
Any problems, or when you come up against something truly not available through the web, contact me at m.nesbitt (@) kew.org.
Mark Nesbitt
Page revised 2 Nov 2007
Plant names
Before searching for information about a plant, it's vital to be sure you are using a correctly spelt and up-to-date plant name. . One of the goals of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservationis the production, by 2010, of a "A widely accessible working list of known plant species, as a step towards a complete world flora". Pending completion of this (unlikely by 2010), ethnobotanists need to turn to regional or thematic checklists of accepted names. However, bear in mind that an accepted name in one checklist may not be an accepted name in another. This doesn't matter; so long as you are using an up-to-date checklist. If using the name in writing, it's a good idea to refer to the source of the plant names you are using (i.e. give the citation).
Thematic checklists
Very useful, fast, checklist of c. 60,000 economically important plant species. Searchable by botanical and common names. Accepted names in bold.
6000 species of cultivated species. rather slow, but usually has useful supplementary data.
Accepted names for all monocots (palms, orchids etc) except grasses (to be added soon).
Accepted names for some (mainly small) plant families. A growing resource.
Accepted names for all members of the (Fabaceae) Leguminosae family.
A list of all plant names ever published, whether accepted or not. To be used with great caution; not a guide to accepted names.
Regional checklists
Accepted names of New World plants, from the Missouri Botanic Garden.
See also online key and the Ecological Database of the British Isles.
Online version of 3 regional checklists, not fully integrated with each other. Most up-to-date for tropical and southern Africa. http://www.plantzafrica.com/
Very rich online resource with online herbarium specimens and texts (including The useful plants of west tropical Africa). Search by genus/species name. Only works with Internet Explorer browser. Free until 31 December 2007.
Google offers a quick way of checking spellings & popularity of different names - use with caution!
Conservation status
Be familiar with IUCN conservation categories which you can check for a species at the (very incomplete) IUCN Red list - e.g. try searching sandalwood, Santalum album. Red Lists are also compiled for countries but these are rarely online (but the UK's Red List is available).
CITES listings are also a useful indicator of conservation status. See the UK CITES website and in particular Annex A & B in the Checklist (in the EU these replace the more usual Appendices I & II).
Finding citations
If working off-campus, be sure to access subscription databases through the Templeman Library website (Online Resources).
General databases
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Offers powerful search facilities on cited references.
Innovative search of scholarly literature on the web. Sometimes contains useful links to freely available online offprints. Does not cover Elsevier journals (for which see Scirus).
Article information taken from over 25,000 multidisciplinary journals. Copntains direct links to articles.
A variety of journal hosting services including AnthroSource, BioOne, Blackwell Synergy, Cambridge University Press, ScienceDirect, HighWire Press, JSTOR, MUSE and SpringerLink.
Specialist databases
Comprehensive record of taxonomic literature since 1974; selected ethnobotanical literature to 2003.
AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access) is a database of bibliographic records created by the National Agricultural Library and its cooperators since 1979. The records describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines.
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Covers 750 journals received by the Department of Ethnography of the British Museum. No subject keywording, so restricted search capability.
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Including foods, drugs, dyes, fibers and other uses of plants (a total of over 44,000 items). This represents uses by 291 Native American groups of 4,029 species from 243 different plant families. Based on American Indian Ethnobotany by Daniel Moerman.
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Produced by the National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. MEDLINE contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from more than 4,000 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 other countries. The file contains over 10 million citations dating back to 1966 to the present. Omits many medicinal plant journals.
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Wellcome Library for the history and understanding of medicine
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Covers c. 600,000 articles and books on all aspects of the history of medicine, including many plants and plant drugs. Ceased in 2005 but the Library Catalogue continues to be important.
Only available on Kew machines
Covers the significant research and development literature in the fields of agriculture, forestry, aspects of human health, human nutrition, animal health and the management and conservation of natural resources. Very comprehensive.
Getting hold of papers - some hints
Don't under-estimate the University's resources. For journals, it's essential to check the Library Catalogue and the Online Journals catalogue. These are separate.
You can plan for trips to Kew by using its Library Catalogue before you come. Kew subscribes to a wide range of electronic journals (LIST) - contact Mark Nesbitt for assistance with these.
Don't neglect other libraries, e.g. at Wye for agriculture and the Anthropology Library at the British Museum's Centre for Anthropology.
Some journals are free to everyone. Kent catalogues some of these; others can be found using the Directory of open access journals (see also e-journals which contains free and subscription journals. Notable initatives include:
It's always worth checking the status of a journal via a Google search. Put the journal name in quotes, e.g. "Brazilian Journal of Biology".
Some books are free to everyone. Search Google using the book title and author surname; Google Books is still developing. Some useful websites include:
Lots of authors put their papers online. Put part of the article title into Google (use advanced search and search for PDFs only), or look for the author's webpages. For example:
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Michael Balick Urban and Belize ethnobotany
Stephen Brush Plant genetic resources
Edward Buckler Maize evolution
John Doebley Maize evolution
Dorian Fuller Archaeobotany
Paul Gepts Bean evolution
Ricardo Godoy Amazonian ethnobotany
Will McClatchey Ethnobotany
Mark Nesbitt Old World archaeobotany
Andrea Pieroni European ethnobotany
Christian Vogl Ethnobotany
Jonathan Wendel Cotton evolution
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