Olivier de Serres

[Una Smith]

I have received a query from a professor of Medieval French who
seeks to collaborate with botanists with relevant expertise on a
project to reconstruct a 16th Century horticultural experiment
station.

Here is the gist of the query:

In 1608 the French agronomist Olivier de Serres wrote a 1100 page
book on rural economy, "Theatre d'Agriculture et mesnage des champs",
that includes extensive inventories and notes on vegetables, fruits
and flowers.  The author's estate farm, Le Pradel, in France 250km
south of Lyon, has become a museum and agricultural research center.
Archaeologists have excavated his original garden beds, and many
seeds collected from those 400 year old beds have been germinated.

The professor wishes to translate the relevant parts of de Serres'
book, and seeks botanists who can identify these "new" plants and
provide their current names.  No doubt he will also need to know
the current names of certain other plants mentioned in the book,
and to associate the new plants with their old names in the book.
He is also interested to know if any of these new plants belong to
species or varieties that have been "lost" since 1600, and if any
of them may be of particular scientific or horticultural interest.


I would like to hear suggestions of what other questions might be
answered by such a project, and any other ideas.  I will forward
all replies, posted or e-mailed, to the professor;  e-mail sent to
me privately will be shared only with the professor.

        Una Smith                       una.smith at yale.edu

        Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
        Yale University
        New Haven, CT  06520-8106