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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  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| Plant Exploration and Introduction 
**Tracer Bullet 11-4**
- Scope
- Introductions to the Topic
- Subject Headings
- Basic Texts
- Additional Texts
- Specialized Titles
- Related Titles
- Handbooks, Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
- Bibliographies
- Conference Proceedings
- Government Publications
- Dissertations
- Selected Dissertations
- Abstracting and Indexing Services                           
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Kiri branch with flowers and leaves.    By Megata Morikaga.    From the Prints & Photographs Catalog,     Library of Congress
. **SCOPE**
Plant exploration and introduction is one of the oldest activities of mankind.  Since the dawn of civilization, individuals have gathered new and useful plants from far away places.  Seeds and seedlings were routinely included as part of the household as people explored new territories and settled in new lands.  While the early colonists subsisted on corn, squash, peas, wild fruits and game of the Native Americans, seed-carrying travelers, immigrants, explorers, and missionaries enhanced the colonist's diet with imported grains and plants, transported great distances in the holds of sailing ships, where temperature, bilge water, vermin and mold took their toll.  From exploration and using their European connections and explorations, citizen farmers and founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson acquired and planted new varieties of plants and trees, keeping detailed accounts of their growth and hardiness.

Today, plant hunters scour the rain forest, desert, mountain, and the tundra for plants that might contain a chemical to fight a fatal disease or be used to create a new product.  Because genetic diversity is key to maintaining and improving agriculture, today's botanists collect seeds to preserve an endangered species, to improve an existing food plant, or to develop a disease-resistant variety.  As wilderness and rainforest habitats are eliminated, plants and diversity disappear, and the role of the plant hunter becomes more critical. This compilation supersedes TB 83-5 and is intended for those who wish to learn something about the history of plant exploration and introduction through a review of the literature available in the collections of the Library of Congress.  *Invasive Species* (TB 05-3) and *Biodiversity* (TB 97-5) may also be of interest to those using *Plant Exploration and Introduction.*  Not meant to be a comprehensive bibliography, this guide is designed--as the name of the series implies--to put the reader "on target."

TOP OF PAGE
**INTRODUCTIONS TO THE TOPIC**
Daisey, Peggy.  Promoting interest in plant biology with biographies of plant hunters.  *American biology teacher,* v. 58, Oct. 1996: 396-406.			   Bibliography: p. 404-406.			   QH1.A275

Kaplan, J. Kim.  Conserving the world's plants.  *Agricultural research,* v. 46, Sept. 1998: 4-9. 		   Pamphlet box <SciRR>

Milius, Susan.  Raiders of the lost potato: as genetic diversity dwindles, botanists scour the globe for rare plants.  *International wildlife*, v. 21, Mar./Apr. 1991: 14-17. 		   QL81.5.I56

Ryerson, Knowles A.  A survey of the introduction of various plants into the United States. Agricultural history, v. 50, Jan. 1976: 248-257. 		   S1.A16

TOP OF PAGE
**SUBJECT HEADINGS**
Subject Headings used by the Library of Congress, under which books on plant exploration and introduction can be located in most card, book, and online catalogs, include the following:

**Highly Relevant**
			  PLANT COLLECTING--HISTORY			  PLANT COLLECTORS			  PLANT COLLECTORS--HISTORY			  PLANT INTRODUCTION			  PLANT INTRODUCTION--HISTORY			
**Relevant**
			  BOTANICAL SPECIMENS--COLLECTION AND PRESERVATION--HISTORY			  BOTANISTS--BIOGRAPHY			  BOTANY, ECONOMIC			  GERMPLASM RESOURCES, PLANT			  PHYTOGEOGRAPHY--HISTORY			
**Related**
			  GERMPLASM RESOURCES CONSERVATION			  PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY			  SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITIONS			  SEED INDUSTRY AND TRADE		    
TOP OF PAGE
**BASIC TEXTS**
Aitken, Richard.  *Botanical riches: stories of botanical exploration.*  Aldershot, Eng., Burlington, VT, Lund Humphries, 2007.  243 p.   Bibliography: p. 235.   QK5.A38 2007 <SciRR>

 Coats, Alice M.  *The plant hunters: being a history of the horticultural pioneers, their quests, and their discoveries from the Renaissance to the twentieth century.*  New York, McGraw Hill, 1970, c1969.  400 p.			     First published in 1969 under the title, *The quest for plants*.			     Bibliography: p. 379-384.			     SB404.5.C63 1970 <SciRR>

 Dodge, Bertha S. (Bertha Sanford).*It started in Eden: how the plant-hunters and the plants they found changed the course of history.*  New York, McGraw-Hill, c1979.  288 p.   Bibliography: p. 271-276.   SB107.D62

 Eifert, Virginia Louise Snider.  *Tall trees and far horizons; adventures and discoveries of early botanists in America.* With photos., maps, and drawings by the author.  New York, Dodd, Mead, 1965.  301 p.			       Bibliography: p. 287-292.				   QK26.E35 1965

 Fry, Carolyn.  *The plant hunters: the adventures of the world’s greatest botanical explorers.*  London, Andre Deutsch, 2009.  63 p.     “Kew 250th, plants, people, possibilities.”			       Contains removable facsimile documents.			       In slip case.				   QK61.F79 2009 <SciRR>

 Haughton, Claire Shaver.  *Green immigrants: the plants that transformed America.*  New York, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, c1978.  450 p.				     SB108.U5H68 1978 <SciRR>

 Healey, Ben.  *The plant hunters.*  New York, Scribner, 1975.  214 p.			       Includes bibliographical references. |