Plant_Hunting_in_the_21st_Century_21世纪的植物狩猎

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2024年3月11日发(作者：)

4 聚焦植物猎人

Plant Hunting in the 21st Century

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21世纪的植物狩猎

译/卢屹

A

ccording to Wikipedia, “plant col-

dried plant specimens, for the purposes

lecting involves procuring live or

of research, cultivation or as a hobby.”

2

poetic definition: “The plant hunter

Kew Gardens’ website offers a more

is a very particular kind of person—a

keen and knowledgeable botanist with

adventure in their hearts; someone who

will take risk and go the extra hundred

miles to seek out the most unusual and

beautiful plants”.

What are the uses of plant hunting?

3

bringing plants back for the sole purpose

For most people, plant hunters are

of growing them and potentially intro-

ducing them in the horticultural trade.

4

which has an adventurous tone. A broader

This is the definition of plant hunting,

definition would include specimens,

seeds, plants brought back for research,

molecular, taxonomic, biological or

ecological studies by scientists working

for institutions such as botanic gardens

or universities. This is what is usually

known as plant collecting.

2023·01 英语世界

按

照维基百科的定义，“植

物采集是指出于研究、

培育、爱好等目的，获取活体

或干制的植物标本。”

2

邱园（英国皇家植物园）

的官网给出了更富诗意的定

义：“植物猎人是一类非常与

众不同的人——是敏锐博学、

怀有冒险之心的植物学家；是

为寻求极稀有、极美丽的植物

而甘冒风险、多行百英里的

人。”

植物狩猎的作用何在？

3

对大多数人而言，植物猎

人采集植物无非是为了种植，

之后大概还会将它们引进园艺

贸易。

4

这就是植物狩猎的定义，

有一定的冒险意味。更宽泛的

定义还包括为植物园、大学等

机构的科学家采集标本、种子、

植株，用于分子学、分类学、

生物学、生态学等学科研究。

这就是通常所说的植物采集。

What’s the importance of plant hunting?

5

impact on gardens all over the world.

Plant hunting has had an enormous

Most of the plants commonly seen in

gardens, parks, greenhouses nowadays

were introduced by great plant hunters

in the 18th or 19th century.

6

discovered plants is of much interest to

Obviously, the aesthetic value of

plant hunters. But it’s not the only one.

7

contain valuable genetic resources for

Plants brought back from abroad can

future plant breeding (for example, a bet-

ter resistance to diseases or drought than

plants known to that date). Plants dis-

covered during expeditions can become

of economic importance as crops: what

would be Europe’s cuisine today, had the

potato tuber not been introduced from

South America in the 16th century?

8

material for scientific studies, whether it

Importantly, these plants are a vital

is in taxonomy (some plants can act as

“missing links” and help resolve evolu-

tionary questions), seed and growth bi-

ology, chemistry (hundreds of our com-

mon medicines contain plant or plant-

derived compounds) etc…

9

Researcher at the University of Oxford

According to John Wood, Senior

and keen plant collector, 15

world’s flowering plants (around 70,000

—30% of the

species) are yet to be discovered, which

means that finding, describing and even

cultivating these unknown plants is es-

聚焦植物猎人 5

植物狩猎的意义何在？

5

植物狩猎对世界各地的花

园产生了巨大影响。如今在花

园、公园、温室中常见的植物

大多是由18世纪或19世纪伟

大的植物猎人引进的。

6

显然，对于新发现的植物，

植物猎人非常关心其审美价

值，但这不是他们唯一的关注

点。

7

从国外采集回来的植物可

能含有对未来植物育种颇具价

值的基因资源（例如，比当时

已知的植物更具抗病性或抗旱

性）。实地考察中发现的植物

可能成为具有重大经济价值的

作物。假如16世纪没有从南

美洲引进马铃薯块茎，那么今

天的欧洲料理会是什么样子？

8

重要的是，这些植物是科

学研究的重要材料，无论是在

分类学领域（有些植物可作为

，帮助解答进化

问题），还是在种子与生长生

物学、化学（数百种常见药物

含有植物或植物源化合物）等

领域，不一而足。

9

据牛津大学高级研究员、

植物采集爱好者约翰·伍德说，

全世界有15%—30%的开花植

物（约7万种）尚待发现。这

意味着，发现、描述，乃至培

育这些未知植物对于更好地了

英语世界 2023·01

“缺失的环节”

6 聚焦植物猎人

sential to gain a better understanding of

global biodiversity.

A brief history

10

The first big era of plant hunting

was the end of the 18th century. At that

time, European countries had large co-

lonial empires, a thirst for knowledge,

a developing love for gardens, and an

interest in all things exotic (not only

plants). It was also around that time

that Linnaean taxonomy

1

became wide-

spread, which helped botanists and

naturalists to sort out their observations

and collections.

11

In the 19th century, plant hunting

became a popular activity. Large in-

stitutions such as Kew Gardens or the

New York Botanical Garden were set

up to support research around the plants

brought back from sponsored expeditions.

12

The beginning of the 20th century

was the golden age of plant hunting,

with a relatively stable political envir-

onment, increasingly good transport

links and habitats still very much un-

damaged. This led to the introduction of

many “exotic” plants in private gardens

and conservatories.

解地球生物多样性至关重要。

植物狩猎简史

10

植物狩猎的第一个重要时

期在18世纪末。当时，欧洲

国家拥有庞大的殖民帝国、求

知的渴望、方兴未艾的园林热，

以及对一切异域风物（不仅是

植物）的浓厚兴趣。也正是在

那个时候，林奈分类学推广开

来，有助于植物学家、自然学

家对自己观察和采集到的成果

进行梳理。

11

到了19世纪，植物狩猎

成为一项热门活动。邱园、纽

约植物园等大型机构得以建

立，以支持研究受赞助探险活

动带回的植物。

12

20世纪初是植物狩猎的黄

金时期，那时政治环境相对稳

定，运输条件日益改善，植物

生长环境在很大程度上尚未受

到破坏。许多“异域”植物因

此被引入私家花园和温室。

13

接下来，20世纪30年代到

70年代，由于战争、危机等原因，

植物狩猎活动大为减少。

1瑞典植物学家卡尔·林奈（Carl Linnaeus，1707—1778）根据对植物生殖器官外表

的观察，将植物分为雌、雄两类。他还建立完善了生物命名法则“双名法”，用两

个拉丁文（或拉丁化形式）单词来表示每个物种的名称。第一个词是属名，第二个

词是种本名，不能脱离属名单独使用。属名为名词，必须以一个大写字母开始；种

本名为形容词或同位名词，必须以一个小写字母开始。后面还常附有定名人的姓名

和定名年代等信息。

2023·01 英语世界

13

the 1930s–1970s with wars and crisis.

Then of course, it was all reduced in

14

John Wood calls the “2nd pivotal area”

The end of the 20th century is what

for plant hunting: many colonial empires

came to an end, prompting countries to

reassert their local ownership; there were

numerous low-level conflicts in Asia,

Africa and South America; and financial

resources were reduced. It was also the

heyday of the “conservation movement”

which would increase international

awareness on biodiversity issues and

introduce restrictions on the trade of

plant and animal resources (particularly

CITES—the Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species).

Plant hunting in the 21st century

15

national treaties and the establishment

With the introduction of inter-

of botanical institutions in many coun-

tries comes a series of legal issues,

what John Wood calls “shades of legal

grey”. For example, he is allowed to

import dried specimens from Bolivia,

but not seeds—then what about seeds

attached to a specimen? Some countries

restrict plant collecting to one family

only, which sounds like a crazy waste

of resources when you’ve had to drive/

walk five days to get to the top of a

botanically-rich mountain!

16

So what’s the way forward?

1) Herbaria: With many herbaria

聚焦植物猎人 7

14

约翰·伍德称20世纪末

是植物狩猎的“第二个关键时

期”。那时，不少殖民帝国走

向终结，促使各国重新确立本

国主权。亚洲、非洲、南美洲

等地低级别冲突频发。财务资

源也有所减少。20世纪末也

是“自然保护运动”的鼎盛时

期。该运动提高了国际社会对

生物多样性问题的认识，并制

定了限制动植物资源贸易的措

施（尤其值得一提的是《濒

危野生动植物种国际贸易公

约》）。

21世纪的植物狩猎

15

由于许多国家开始践行国

际公约，又设立了众多植物研

究所，一系列法律问题随之而

来。约翰·伍德将这类问题称

作“法律的灰色阴影”。例如，

他可以获批从玻利维亚进口干

制标本，却不能进口种子，那

么标本本身附着的种子怎么

办？有些国家规定只可采集某

一科的植物，可有时候要开车

或步行5天才能登顶植物种类

丰富的大山，这种情况下，这

个限令听起来就特别浪费资

源！

16

那么，植物狩猎的前景如

何？

1）标本馆：如今不少标

英语世界 2023·01

8 聚焦植物猎人

now digitizing images and barcoding

their sheets

2

, exchanging information

and comparing specimens has become

much easier. A 2010 paper suggests

that, out of the 70,000 species “yet to be

described”, more than half have already

been collected and stored in herbaria!

Herbarium specimens are therefore a

hugely underestimated and understudied

resource.

2) Plant hunting disguised as another

activity: With funding increasingly dif-

ficult to obtain, and “traditional” tax-

onomy being supplanted by DNA or

other methods, disguising a collecting

expedition as an environmental impact

study or a conservation project can

sometimes be the only solution. But this

is a noble disguise, as it can raise the

awareness of populations on their local

biodiversity, teach them worthy skills,

or encourage them to use plant resourc-

es in a sustainable way.

3) Revitalising institutions: Accord-

ing to John Wood, there are several

problems with today’s botanical institu-

tions. They lack interest in plant hunt-

ing/collecting, and many important con-

tributions nowadays are made by keen

amateurs. They lack focus and are too

absorbed with digitization, conservation

projects (for him, conservation should

本馆对标本图像进行了数字化

处理，并为腊叶标本分配了条

形码，于是信息交流、标本比

对较以往容易得多。2010年

的一篇论文表明，在7万种“尚

待描述”的植物中，过半数已

被采集并储存在标本馆！由此

可见，腊叶标本集是被严重低

估的资源，相关研究也十分匮

乏。

2）伪装成其他活动的植

物狩猎：由于资金越来越难

获取，“传统”分类法正在被

DNA技术等方法取代，将采集

植物的考察活动伪装成环境影

响研究或自然保护项目，有时

可能是唯一的解决方案。然而，

这不失为一种高贵的伪装，因

为这样做能提高民众对本地生

物多样性的认识，向他们传授

有用技能，或许还能鼓励他们

以可持续的方式使用植物资源。

3）重振研究所：约翰·伍

德认为，当今的植物研究所存

在诸多问题。它们对植物狩猎

或采集缺乏兴趣，以至于如今

作出不少重要贡献的反而是热

情的业余爱好者。植物研究所

不够专注，过分沉迷于数字化、

自然保护项目（伍德认为，自

2 sheet此处指腊叶标本（herbarium sheet）。腊叶标本又称压制标本，其制作方法是

采集植物的一段带叶枝，或者带花或带果的整株植物体，在标本夹中压平、干燥后

装贴在台纸上制成标本。

2023·01 英语世界

聚焦植物猎人 9

be local initiatives) or databasing to

continue building up collections. Some

institutions don’t even have a policy on

plant collecting.

4) Collaboration: Developing col-

laboration with local institutions and

populations opens up many doors. But

there are difficulties: you need to make

contact with people and build confi-

dence, but also, maintain links on a

long-term basis (this was much easier in

the past, with plant hunters making long

expeditions) and share benefits. This

is something that institutions don’t do,

with British staff getting paid a lot more

than local staff, for example.

17

Ultimately, the future looks very

uncertain for British plant hunting. The

situation is quite similar for other Euro-

pean countries, which have lost their

colonial empires. By contrast, there is

an increasing number of plant hunting

expeditions made by Chinese, Brazilian,

Russian botanists, and sometimes to far-

away countries!

■

然保护应该是地方上的举措），

或是数据库建设，而无法持续

积累采集成果。有些研究所甚

至没有植物采集方针。

4）协作：与当地机构和

民众增进协作可创造很多机

会。但是困难在于：必须与人

接触并建立信任，而且要长期

保持联系（这在过去要容易很

多，因为植物猎人会进行漫长

的探险活动）并共享利益。这

是机构办不到的，因为英国工

作人员的酬劳远高于当地工作

人员。

17

说到底，英国植物狩猎的

前景极不确定。其他欧洲国家

的情况也大同小异，它们的殖

民帝国已然消逝。相比之下，

中国、巴西、俄罗斯等国植物

学家为采集植物而进行的考察

活动倒是越来越多，有时候还

会去遥远的国度！

□

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”

翻译大赛获奖者）

英语世界 2023·01

本文标签： 植物标本采集