list of figures - Terry Sunderland

taxonomies are included in (or affiliated with) one of the recognised life form taxa.
However, there are generic taxa that are sufficiently morphologically distinct or
economically important to be classified as unaffiliated, that is independent of lifeforms.
6.4.6 Specific and varietal categories
Some generics are further divided into specific or even varietal categories. These
differ from both life-form and generic categories in that they are conceptually
distinguished from one another on the basis of very few morphological characters.
The two levels of classification are more widely applied to plants of considerable
cultural or utilitarian value.
6.5 METHODS
Fieldwork for the study of the taxonomy, ecology and utilisation of African rattans,
was undertaken primarily in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. The
field surveys concentrated both on the collection of herbarium voucher specimens to
provide representative material for the completion of a taxonomic revision of the
rattans of Africa, as well as the recording of vernacular names and uses for each
species. Where possible (and where appropriate), vernacular names were recorded in
the field using a tape recorder and later transcribed and interpreted with the assistance
of a translator, who were native speakers of the languages in question. English (both
Standard and Pidgin English) and French were used as lingua francas.
Further study of existing herbarium voucher material held in herbaria 2 , as well as an
extensive literature search, provided a plethora of vernacular names that could be
compared with the actual species the local name referred to. This latter study
confirmed the presence of significant consistencies within a number of classification
systems first detected during our own field research.
For the purposes of this chapter, vernacular names are spelled phonetically but the use
of the phonetic alphabet has been avoided for ease of reading. Language and tribal
2 Material was studied from the Libreville, Yaounde, Bata, Kumasi, Gold Coast, New York, Missouri,
Hamburg, Geneva, Wageningen, Brussels, Florence and Kew herbaria.
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