Schriften zu Genetischen Ressourcen - Genres

M. CHAUVET
times, when you go back to the original text, you discover that the identification may be
false or biased, and that the author says much more than what is quoted.
The resulting text intertwines aspects of biological and social history, according to the
information available.
Ethnology
Here we deal with the role of the plant in mythologies, religion, symbols and cultural life
(art, literature, etc.). It is highly variable according to species.
Uses
At the beginning, I thought that writing about uses would be an easy task, because our
societies give a great importance to economy. I discovered that only the standard products
are quite well documented, and that very few syntheses exist about the diversity of
plant products through history and ethnic groups. Ethnologists and historians even lack
a common terminology to describe the technologies of food processing. I limited myself
to describe, define and classify the different products that may be known to the common
reader, or play an important role in nutrition or in history. As usual, I insisted on the
popular names of such products and dishes.
Economy
Facts and figures about production and trade worldwide are given. This section being
liable to become rapidly obsolete, it is somewhat sketchy, and does not intend to be a
market survey.
References
Only the specific references used as sources are mentioned. The general ones will be
presented in the introduction.
Additional features
We decided quite naively that each species (and cultivar-group) should come with a
line-drawing showing the shape of the plant, and one or several colour drawings showing
flowers and leaves, and the organ used, including as it is marketed, and with a
cross-section to show its structure and colour. This task has grown into a true adventure,
which now allows me to look with another eye at historical illustrations. We had to recruit
about ten illustrators, with different skills and backgrounds. Many plant products were
simply bought on markets, wherever my travels allowed me to go. For others, we could
rely on botanic gardens, genebanks and amateur gardeners. When it was not possible
to have access to living plants, we had to draw from photographs. In the process, I discovered
how easy it is to retain a misidentified drawing, or a drawing that is not representative
of the species. For example, the first drawing of kiwifruit came of course from
a good source, the famous historical kiwifruit of the Jardin des Plantes of Paris. How-
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