Naming Species in the South Pacific: Revising a Past Endeavour to Develop New Digital and Culture Collaborations
This AHRC/University of Cambridge Impact Acceleration Account Grant (IAA) is designed to create an accessible resource based on the natural history collections compiled during James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific (1768–1771). Concentrating on the manuscripts and illustrations compiled as Cook's Endeavour circumnavigated New Zealand, a main objective is to digitise, transcribe and partially translate content from the first manuscripts on New Zealand plants that form part of these collections. These include Daniel Solander's (1733–82) original field notebook 'Plantæ Australiæ (Novæ Zelandiæ)' and a worked up 'fair copy' of the descriptions called 'Primitiæ Floræ Novæ Zelandiæ' written by his secretary and assistant naturalist Herman Spöring (1733–71).
We are working with a broad range of collaborators and partners. This includes the Natural History Museum, London (NHM), that holds these manuscripts, but also the Manuka Charitable Trust, the Waikereru Ecosanctuary, the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research and colleagues at universities in Auckland and Otago. A central aim of this project is to better understand the diverse contributions made by Māori to the botanical collecting undertaken during the first scientific exploration of New Zealand in 1769. The digitised material, which is to be housed on the NHM Library and Archives 'Digitised Special Collections' platform, will reveal how Māori knowledge was integrated into the botanical names and descriptions that European naturalists compiled to form the first written floras of New Zealand. We are also planning to obtain genome data from some of the type specimens collected during Cook's voyages which may help to establish their regional origin and taxonomic status.
This project provides a new insight into the dynamic relationships associated with the naming and description of plant species and varieties with the aim to disseminate understanding of naming practices in the earliest stages of colonisation. It is designed to generate impact through providing an accessible resource while producing a workable model that will go towards the further digitisation, transcription and translation of the natural history manuscripts compiled during Cook's voyages to the Pacific.
People
Principal Investigator: Dr Edwin Rose
Co-Investigator: Prof. Staffan Müller-Wille
Research Assistant: John Schaefer
Collaborators: Andrea Hart (Natural History Museum, London), Prof. Anne Salmond (University of Auckland), Hamish Spencer (University of Otago), David Chagne (New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research), Kristen Kohere-Soutar (Manuka Charitable Trust) and Malcolm Rutherford (1769 Seed Archive)
Funding
AHRC IAA Grant
Image credit
An illustration of Piper myristicum (now Piper excelsum Forst.) produced by Sydney Parkinson (c. 1745–71) during James Cook's circumnavigation of the islands of New Zealand in 1769. By kind permission of the Natural History Museum, London.