The Robert Brown Handbook

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Robert Brown (1773–1858) was considered a scientific titan and dubbed ‘Jupiter Botanicus’, the greatest botanist of his time, with broad interests in plant science. Yet today, beyond Brownian Movement and the ‘R.Br.’ after hundreds of plant-names, he and his ground-breaking work are little appreciated, largely because, on the one hand, his pioneering discoveries have become a familiar part of mainstream biology and, on the other, his work was to be sidelined by his botanical successors bent on pure systematics and inventory as part of the British imperial endeavour.

This book draws together for the first time published materials on Brown’s work together with information contained in his unpublished manuscripts and associated specimens, predominantly those in the Natural History Museum London.

(David Mabberley / IAPT, 2022)

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