I did not quite understand some of the words that you employed, but I think that I have the same concerns and questions that you have.
I am a taxonomist! Interest in taxonomy at present is virtually nonexistant and I was recently amazed to learn that many institutions which offer degrees in horticulture do not require a knowledge of botany. The holder of a degree in botany today-both BS and MS levels- have essentially no knowledge of taxonomy nor do they know what an herbarium is.
The unbelievable, inconprehensible mess known as plant nomenclature is the direct result of lack of taxonomic instruction.
I am an old doddler who could not earn a decent living with an advanced degree in taxonomy. I was fortunate in having a skill in another field. Please. let's hear more from you in this forum!!!

I'd like to hear more from both of you. I'm an autodidact...LOL...just a self-taught backyard gardener. But I'm very interested in reading about plant exploration...I try and follow the travels of Kim Hawks, Dan Hinkley, Tony Avant, the guys from Yucca-Do, and so many more nurserymen who seem to be following in the footsteps of earlier nurserymen. I'd love to have heard the lectures, Cranebill.

As for herbariums, Taxonomist, they are my special love. I'm so thrilled that there's so much info on line, including of course the illustrations. I was tickled to find on MOBOT's site the instructions given to present-day plant hunters on how to prepare specimens...contrasting with what the earlier explorers must have had to go through. Although the rigors of collecting on-site remain pretty much the same over the centuries, at least they can now fly out with their specimens once they reach civilization, not have to endure months on a ship trying to keep their collections safe. You know, even way back some of the planthunter's work was ignored...I've read instances where it was not even examined or catalogued for years or worse still, allowed to deteriorate. Heartbreakng.

As you can see I don't have anything to contribute but wanted to say I hope you go on with your discussion and that others join in. josh

Well, as a grad student in plant taxonomy... maybe I have something to say about this.

The nature of academia has changed drastically since the era when taxonomy was at the forefront. There has been a shift from the classical liberal education--based on acquisition of knowledge and intellectual skill for its own sake, as part of the necessary background of a member of upper-class society--towards education as a means of gaining employment. (for a brief time, the classical liberal education was extended to the middle class as well; but now we have a shadow of this) A similar shift exists in research, which is increasingly biased towards lucrative projects. Basically: lucrative research (e.g., biochemical and biomedical research) is heavily funded by both corporations and government grants. Furthermore, hiring decisions at research institutions are based in large part on the amount of grant money a potential professor will bring in. So taxonomists have several problems: our field is not useful in getting jobs (not *directly* useful, I should point out; and indirect utility is mostly overlooked), so we are considered relatively unimportant in education; and taxonomists can expect difficulties in both getting funding for their research and, as a result, getting hired at research institutions.

As a result, most professors who do work in classical taxonomy (i.e., actually describing and sticking names on things, rather than constructing phylogenies and so forth) are retired, near retirement, or doing taxonomic work as a sideline to their "real" research. This is also tied up with the idea of scientific progress: if all plants at a locale are described and named, a taxonomist is viewed as superfluous; there is no room left for "progress". For instance, since almost all plants in the US are described funding for classical taxonomists focusing on the US is essentially nonexistent--the Flora of North America project, for instance, is essentially a volunteer endeavor. This kind of reasoning forgets, however, that without practitioners any body of knowledge decays; it has a half-life. Even if all plant taxonomy in the US were known (it is not), we would still need plant taxonomists, lest we lose that knowledge. Other fields in botany need the insights of taxonomy, and so that knowledge must be available to be applied.

That's enough bombast from me for one day...

Patrick Alexander

Well said Patrick!

In theory at least, the 'Darwin Initiative' put forward by the UK govt. (and others, I think, but am not sure) is supposed to be providing 'big' funding for taxonomic research . . . yet I'm not aware of any salaried posts or other work in taxonomy actually resulting from it.

Resin

I am 14 and wold like to go into botanical taxonomy, classification and exploration. I plan on attending the University of Hawaii's Manoa campus.