譯/盧屹

According to Wikipedia, “plant collecting involves procuring live or dried plant specimens, for the purposes of research, cultivation or as a hobby.”

按照維基百科的定義，“植物采集是指出于研究、培育、愛好等目的，獲取活體或干制的植物標本。”

2Kew Gardens’ website offers a more poetic definition: “The plant hunter is a very particular kind of person—a keen and knowledgeable botanist with adventure in their hearts; someone who will take risk and go the extra hundred miles to seek out the most unusual and beautiful plants”.

2邱園（英國皇家植物園）的官網(wǎng)給出了更富詩意的定義：“植物獵人是一類非常與眾不同的人——是敏銳博學、懷有冒險之心的植物學家；是為尋求極稀有、極美麗的植物而甘冒風險、多行百英里的人?！?/p>

What are the uses of plant hunting?

3For most people, plant hunters are bringing plants back for the sole purpose of growing them and potentially introducing them in the horticultural trade.

4This is the defniition of plant hunting,which has an adventurous tone.A broader definition would include specimens,seeds, plants brought back for research,molecular, taxonomic, biological or ecological studies by scientists working for institutions such as botanic gardens or universities.This is what is usually known as plant collecting.

植物狩獵的作用何在？

3對大多數(shù)人而言，植物獵人采集植物無非是為了種植，之后大概還會將它們引進園藝貿易。

4這就是植物狩獵的定義，有一定的冒險意味。更寬泛的定義還包括為植物園、大學等機構的科學家采集標本、種子、植株，用于分子學、分類學、生物學、生態(tài)學等學科研究。這就是通常所說的植物采集。

What’s the importance of plant hunting?

5Plant hunting has had an enormous impact on gardens all over the world.Most of the plants commonly seen in gardens, parks, greenhouses nowadays were introduced by great plant hunters in the 18th or 19th century.

6Obviously, the aesthetic value of discovered plants is of much interest to plant hunters.But it’s not the only one.

7Plants brought back from abroad can contain valuable genetic resources for future plant breeding (for example, a better resistance to diseases or drought than plants known to that date).Plants discovered during expeditions can become of economic importance as crops: what would be Europe’s cuisine today, had the potato tuber not been introduced from South America in the 16th century?

8Importantly, these plants are a vital material for scientific studies, whether it is in taxonomy (some plants can act as“missing links” and help resolve evolutionary questions), seed and growth biology, chemistry (hundreds of our common medicines contain plant or plantderived compounds) etc…

植物狩獵的意義何在？

5植物狩獵對世界各地的花園產(chǎn)生了巨大影響。如今在花園、公園、溫室中常見的植物大多是由18 世紀或19 世紀偉大的植物獵人引進的。

6顯然，對于新發(fā)現(xiàn)的植物，植物獵人非常關心其審美價值，但這不是他們唯一的關注點。

7從國外采集回來的植物可能含有對未來植物育種頗具價值的基因資源（例如，比當時已知的植物更具抗病性或抗旱性）。實地考察中發(fā)現(xiàn)的植物可能成為具有重大經(jīng)濟價值的作物。假如16 世紀沒有從南美洲引進馬鈴薯塊莖，那么今天的歐洲料理會是什么樣子？

8重要的是，這些植物是科學研究的重要材料，無論是在分類學領域（有些植物可作為“缺失的環(huán)節(jié)”，幫助解答進化問題），還是在種子與生長生物學、化學（數(shù)百種常見藥物含有植物或植物源化合物）等領域，不一而足。

9據(jù)牛津大學高級研究員、植物采集愛好者約翰·伍德說，全世界有15%—30%的開花植物（約7 萬種）尚待發(fā)現(xiàn)。這意味著，發(fā)現(xiàn)、描述，乃至培育這些未知植物對于更好地了解地球生物多樣性至關重要。

9According to John Wood, Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford and keen plant collector, 15—30% of the world’s flowering plants (around 70,000 species) are yet to be discovered, which means that finding, describing and even cultivating these unknown plants is essential to gain a better understanding of global biodiversity.

A brief history

10The first big era of plant hunting was the end of the 18th century.At that time, European countries had large colonial empires, a thirst for knowledge,a developing love for gardens, and an interest in all things exotic (not only plants).It was also around that time that Linnaean taxonomy1瑞典植物學家卡爾·林奈（Carl Linnaeus，1707—1778）根據(jù)對植物生殖器官外表的觀察，將植物分為雌、雄兩類。他還建立完善了生物命名法則“雙名法”，用兩個拉丁文（或拉丁化形式）單詞來表示每個物種的名稱。第一個詞是屬名，第二個詞是種本名，不能脫離屬名單獨使用。屬名為名詞，必須以一個大寫字母開始；種本名為形容詞或同位名詞，必須以一個小寫字母開始。后面還常附有定名人的姓名和定名年代等信息。became widespread, which helped botanists and naturalists to sort out their observations and collections.

11In the 19th century, plant hunting became a popular activity.Large institutions such as Kew Gardens or the New York Botanical Garden were set up to support research around the plants brought back from sponsored expeditions.

12The beginning of the 20th century was the golden age of plant hunting,with a relatively stable political environment, increasingly good transport links and habitats still very much undamaged.This led to the introduction of many “exotic” plants in private gardens and conservatories.

植物狩獵簡史

10植物狩獵的第一個重要時期在18 世紀末。當時，歐洲國家擁有龐大的殖民帝國、求知的渴望、方興未艾的園林熱，以及對一切異域風物（不僅是植物）的濃厚興趣。也正是在那個時候，林奈分類學推廣開來，有助于植物學家、自然學家對自己觀察和采集到的成果進行梳理。

11到了19 世紀，植物狩獵成為一項熱門活動。邱園、紐約植物園等大型機構得以建立，以支持研究受贊助探險活動帶回的植物。

1220 世紀初是植物狩獵的黃金時期，那時政治環(huán)境相對穩(wěn)定，運輸條件日益改善，植物生長環(huán)境在很大程度上尚未受到破壞。許多“異域”植物因此被引入私家花園和溫室。

13接下來，20 世紀30 年代到70 年代，由于戰(zhàn)爭、危機等原因，植物狩獵活動大為減少。

13Then of course, it was all reduced in the 1930s-1970s with wars and crisis.

14The end of the 20th century is what John Wood calls the “2nd pivotal area”for plant hunting: many colonial empires came to an end, prompting countries to reassert their local ownership; there were numerous low-level conflicts in Asia,Africa and South America; and financial resources were reduced.It was also the heyday of the “conservation movement”which would increase international awareness on biodiversity issues and introduce restrictions on the trade of plant and animal resources (particularly CITES—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).

14約翰·伍德稱20 世紀末是植物狩獵的“第二個關鍵時期”。那時，不少殖民帝國走向終結，促使各國重新確立本國主權。亞洲、非洲、南美洲等地低級別沖突頻發(fā)。財務資源也有所減少。20 世紀末也是“自然保護運動”的鼎盛時期。該運動提高了國際社會對生物多樣性問題的認識，并制定了限制動植物資源貿易的措施（尤其值得一提的是《瀕危野生動植物種國際貿易公約》）。

Plant hunting in the 21st century

15With the introduction of international treaties and the establishment of botanical institutions in many countries comes a series of legal issues,what John Wood calls “shades of legal grey”.For example, he is allowed to import dried specimens from Bolivia,but not seeds—then what about seeds attached to a specimen? Some countries restrict plant collecting to one family only, which sounds like a crazy waste of resources when you’ve had to drive/walk five days to get to the top of a botanically-rich mountain!

16So what’s the way forward?

21 世紀的植物狩獵

15由于許多國家開始踐行國際公約，又設立了眾多植物研究所，一系列法律問題隨之而來。約翰·伍德將這類問題稱作“法律的灰色陰影”。例如，他可以獲批從玻利維亞進口干制標本，卻不能進口種子，那么標本本身附著的種子怎么辦？有些國家規(guī)定只可采集某一科的植物，可有時候要開車或步行5 天才能登頂植物種類豐富的大山，這種情況下，這個限令聽起來就特別浪費資源！

16那么，植物狩獵的前景如何？

1）標本館：如今不少標本館對標本圖像進行了數(shù)字化處理，并為臘葉標本分配了條形碼，于是信息交流、標本比對較以往容易得多。2 0 1 0年的一篇論文表明，在7萬種“尚待描述”的植物中，過半數(shù)已被采集并儲存在標本館！由此可見，臘葉標本集是被嚴重低估的資源，相關研究也十分匱乏。

1) Herbaria: With many herbaria now digitizing images and barcoding their sheets2sheet 此處指臘葉標本（herbarium sheet）。臘葉標本又稱壓制標本，其制作方法是采集植物的一段帶葉枝，或者帶花或帶果的整株植物體，在標本夾中壓平、干燥后裝貼在臺紙上制成標本。, exchanging information and comparing specimens has become much easier.A 2010 paper suggests that, out of the 70,000 species “yet to be described”, more than half have already been collected and stored in herbaria!Herbarium specimens are therefore a hugely underestimated and understudied resource.

2) Plant hunting disguised as another activity: With funding increasingly difficult to obtain, and “traditional” taxonomy being supplanted by DNA or other methods, disguising a collecting expedition as an environmental impact study or a conservation project can sometimes be the only solution.But this is a noble disguise, as it can raise the awareness of populations on their local biodiversity, teach them worthy skills,or encourage them to use plant resources in a sustainable way.

3) Revitalising institutions: According to John Wood, there are several problems with today’s botanical institutions.They lack interest in plant hunting/collecting, and many important contributions nowadays are made by keen amateurs.They lack focus and are too absorbed with digitization, conservation projects (for him, conservation should be local initiatives) or databasing to continue building up collections.Some institutions don’t even have a policy on plant collecting.

2）偽裝成其他活動的植物狩獵：由于資金越來越難獲取，“傳統(tǒng)”分類法正在被DNA 技術等方法取代，將采集植物的考察活動偽裝成環(huán)境影響研究或自然保護項目，有時可能是唯一的解決方案。然而，這不失為一種高貴的偽裝，因為這樣做能提高民眾對本地生物多樣性的認識，向他們傳授有用技能，或許還能鼓勵他們以可持續(xù)的方式使用植物資源。

3）重振研究所：約翰·伍德認為，當今的植物研究所存在諸多問題。它們對植物狩獵或采集缺乏興趣，以至于如今作出不少重要貢獻的反而是熱情的業(yè)余愛好者。植物研究所不夠專注，過分沉迷于數(shù)字化、自然保護項目（伍德認為，自然保護應該是地方上的舉措），或是數(shù)據(jù)庫建設，而無法持續(xù)積累采集成果。有些研究所甚至沒有植物采集方針。

4) Collaboration: Developing collaboration with local institutions and populations opens up many doors.But there are difficulties: you need to make contact with people and build confidence, but also, maintain links on a long-term basis (this was much easier in the past, with plant hunters making long expeditions) and share benefits.This is something that institutions don’t do,with British staff getting paid a lot more than local staff, for example.

4）協(xié)作：與當?shù)貦C構和民眾增進協(xié)作可創(chuàng)造很多機會。但是困難在于：必須與人接觸并建立信任，而且要長期保持聯(lián)系（這在過去要容易很多，因為植物獵人會進行漫長的探險活動）并共享利益。這是機構辦不到的，因為英國工作人員的酬勞遠高于當?shù)毓ぷ魅藛T。

17說到底，英國植物狩獵的前景極不確定。其他歐洲國家的情況也大同小異，它們的殖民帝國已然消逝。相比之下，中國、巴西、俄羅斯等國植物學家為采集植物而進行的考察活動倒是越來越多，有時候還會去遙遠的國度！ □

17Ultimately, the future looks very uncertain for British plant hunting.The situation is quite similar for other European countries, which have lost their colonial empires.By contrast, there is an increasing number of plant hunting expeditions made by Chinese, Brazilian,Russian botanists, and sometimes to faraway countries! ■