Ivan M. Johnston's Studies in the Boraginaceae

About this book

During his 38-year career at Harvard University, Ivan Murray Johnston focused his research on the systematics of Boraginaceae, and his results were largely published in a series of 31 journal articles entitled "Studies in the Boraginaceae." These appeared as a numbered series between 1923 and 1961, with subtitles giving some indication of the subject matter presented, yet all but one lacked an index to the taxa that were treated. Cumulatively they represent an enormous contribution to our present understanding of the taxonomy of the Boraginaceae, but the format in which they were published makes it difficult to access the information easily. The present contribution is an index to the botanical names in Johnston's "Studies in the Boraginaceae." Introductory material discusses Johnston's career, including his other research interests, but this volume is not intended to be a complete history of his life and accomplishments. An explanation of how the index was prepared, a complete list of all of Johnston's research publications, and indices to the type specimens of names published by Johnston are also provided.

No single botanist has had as great an impact on our present state of knowledge of the systematics of Boraginaceae as Ivan Murray Johnston. The family was his primary research interest during his 38-year career at Harvard University. In addition to his contributions to our present understanding of relationships and classification, he published 215 new names in the family, accounting for about 10% of the presently recognized species. Only the combined efforts of Augustin Pyramus and Alphonso de Candolle in the Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis (de Candolle, 1845, 1846), where they published more than 350 species and nearly 500 new taxa of Boraginaceae, could attempt to claim a larger number, but their work is much less detailed, a much smaller percentage of their species are accepted by modern authors, and their classification was much less refined than that of Johnston.

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