naming expeditions

[Adolf Ceska]

I was reluctant to step into this discussion, but ...

Prof. Walter Kubiena (German pedologist) started to be interested in soils
during World War I in Siberia, where as a prisoner of war, he managed to
collect a Siberian herbarium. Prof. Josef Podpera (Czech bryologist,
botanist and phytogeographer) was also in Russia during WWI as a prisoner
of war. Czech botanists published several floristic papers as a result of
their botanizing when they were called for exercises of army
reservists. When I was conscripted to the two-year military service I
became quite familiar with an interesting flora of SW Slovakia.
Identification keys and "The good soldier Svejk" were (and I believe that
they still are) good antidotes to the so-called military culture.

Adolf Ceska, Victoria, B.C., Canada


On Fri, 28 Jan 2000, Thomas Lammers wrote:

> At 04:48 PM 1/28/00 +0800, you wrote:
>
> >Perhaps the military could be induced to fund young taxonomists in out of
> >the way places under a similar scheme!
>
> They already do, unofficially.  I recall a grad student in the '70's who
> had gotten interested in botany and collected a very nice set of plants in
> his free time while stationed in the Aleutians with the military.  And an
> emeritus told me of collecting plants for his former professor back home
> while serving as bombardier on a B-25 in the South Pacific during WWII.  A
> more productive pasttime than playing cards or shooting craps ...
>
>
>
> Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.
>
> Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
> Department of Biology and Microbiology
> University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
> Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA
>
> e-mail:                     lammers at uwosh.edu
> phone (office):         920-424-7085
> phone (herbarium):  920-424-1002
> fax:                         920-424-1101
>
> Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and
> biogeography of the Campanulaceae s. lat.
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> "Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that stood his ground."
>                                                  -- Anonymous
>