Main Page
Welcome on Pl@ntUse
News
Zohary Daniel, Hopf Maria & Weiss Ehud, 2012. Domestication of plants in the Old World. The origin and spread of cultivated plants in south-west Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press. ed. 4. XVI-243 p. (ed. 1 : 1988 ; ed. 2 : 1994 ; ed. 3 : 2000).
This is the fourth edition of this book, which shows that it has become a major reference for all those interested by the origin of cultivated plants in Europe and the Mediterranean. It combines solid and up-to-date data on archeology on one side, botany and genetics on the other. It deals above all about the assemblage of plants domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, one of the big centers of origin of agriculture worldwide.
In brief, this book is unavoidable. We can only dream to have equivalent books for other parts of the world, which have unfortunately been less studied than south-west Asia.
11 July 2012
.png){kind=link}
The plant of the month: chamomiles
Chamomiles, and feverfew have been collected and grown for a long time, for their medicinal properties and as beverage plants. Indeed, but which of them? At least three are important, and they can have simple or double flowers. Botanistes moved them from one genus to the other, which makes identification more difficult. Which one is the "true", teh "Roman", the German" one? Many errors can be found in books. You will find here a small identification key for cultivated chamomiles.
It is now up to you to contribute!
What is Pl@ntUse?
Pl@ntuse is a collaborative space for exchange of information on useful plants and uses of plants. It is not intended to duplicate existing encyclopedias (including Wikipedia), but to offer additional features such as:
- On-line resources that you can reuse
- Portal towards relevant resources available on Internet
- Thematic introductions to literature or any subject of interest
- Species lists (legumes grown in France, world cereals...)
- Popular names or vernacular names
- Portrait galeries of cultivars (varieties)
- Old books and articles on useful plants
- Original publications
- Iconography
- Questions and answers
The working method
It is of course scalable and open for discussion. But the basic idea is not to produce consensus summaries. It is rather to provide reliable material to allow everyone to make his/her own synthesis. A priority is to upload the data sets that underlie the work, but are rarely published, forcing everyone to start from scratch.
Any kind of page may be created. Templates have been devised to create pages with a similar structure and with similar content. Such pages are easily accessible through categories or portals. If you intend to upload new types of information, please ask the administrators, who will help you create and use a new template.
As is customary in the scientific community, we mention the author of each contribution. However, most of the contributions may be corrected or updated, as far as they reach consensus. See Help:Authors of contributions
Each page is potentially available in English and French. By default, we are beginning with French, except for books written in English. You can collaborate by translating.