Kent Ethnobotany: tracking literature on the Web
This is a page of useful links for Ethnobotany MSc students in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent. Botanical and ethnobotanical literature is increasingly available on the Web: these pages offer pointers on locating citations and equally usefully) getting hold of books or papers once you know of them.
Any problems, or when you come up against something truly not available through the web, contact me at m.nesbitt (@) kew.org.
Page revised 10 Oct 2012
Before searching for information about a plant, it's vital to be sure you are using a correctly spelt and up-to-date plant name. There is no universal list of plant names that tells you which are in use ("accepted names") and which are obsolete ("synonyms"). Instead, ethnobotanists need to turn to regional or thematic checklists of accepted names. However, bear in mind that an accepted name in one checklist may not be an accepted name in another. This doesn't matter; so long as you are using an up-to-date checklist. If using the name in writing, it's a good idea to refer to the source of the plant names you are using (i.e. give the citation).
Combines a variety of datbases into one. To be used with caution, can give ambiguous results or "name unresolved".
Combines a variety of datbases into one.
Very useful, fast, checklist of c. 60,000 economically important plant species. Searchable by botanical and common names. Accepted names in bold.
6000 species of cultivated species. With useful supplementary data.
Accepted names for mononcots and some dicot families. A growing resource.
Accepted names for all members of the (Fabaceae) Leguminosae family.
A list of all plant names ever published, whether accepted or not. To be used with great caution; not a guide to accepted names.
Accepted names of New World plants, from the Missouri Botanic Garden.
See also online key.
Online version of 3 regional checklists, not fully integrated with each other. Most up-to-date for tropical and southern Africa.
Very rich online resource with online herbarium specimens and texts for Africa, South America and Asia (including The useful plants of west tropical Africa). Search by genus/species name. Free access from Kent computers or VPN
Google offers a quick way of checking spellings & popularity of different names - use with caution!
Be familiar with IUCN conservation categories which you can check for a species at the (very incomplete) IUCN Red list - e.g. try searching sandalwood, Santalum album. Red Lists are also compiled for countries but these are rarely online (but the UK's Red List is available).
CITES listings are also a useful indicator of conservation status. See the UK CITES website and in particular Annex A & B in the Checklist (in the EU these replace the more usual Appendices I & II).
If working off-campus, be sure to access subscription databases through the Templeman Library website (Online Resources).
Offers powerful search facilities on cited references. Try "Related records".
Innovative search of scholarly literature on the web. Sometimes contains useful links to freely available online offprints. NB - if used on a Kent computer or VPN, you should be able to click through to any articles included in Kent subscriptions.
Article information taken from over 25,000 multidisciplinary journals. Copntains direct links to articles.
Comprehensive record of taxonomic literature 1974-2009; selected ethnobotanical literature to 2003. Good for older references.
AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access) is a database of bibliographic records created by the National Agricultural Library and its cooperators since 1979. The records describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines.
Covers 750 journals received by the Department of Ethnography of the British Museum. No subject keywording, so restricted search capability.
Including foods, drugs, dyes, fibers and other uses of plants (a total of over 44,000 items). This represents uses by 291 Native American groups of 4,029 species from 243 different plant families. Based on American Indian Ethnobotany by Daniel Moerman.
Produced by the National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. MEDLINE contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from more than 4,000 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 other countries. The file contains over 10 million citations dating back to 1966 to the present. Omits many medicinal plant journals.
Only available on Kew machines
Covers the significant research and development literature in the fields of agriculture, forestry, aspects of human health, human nutrition, animal health and the management and conservation of natural resources. Very comprehensive.
Getting hold of papers - some hints
Don't under-estimate the University's resources. For journals, it's essential to check the journals part of the catalogue - the general catalogue does not show e-journals Library Journals Catalogue
Don't neglect other libraries, especially:
Covers c. 600,000 articles and books on all aspects of the history of medicine, including many plants and plant drugs. Bibliography ceased in 2005 but the Library Catalogue continues to be useful.Open Mon-Sat.
- Anthropology Library at the British Museum's Centre for Anthropology.
- Excellent Open access library, open Mon-Fri.
- Lindley Library
- Excellent coverage of plants and gardens, opening hours variable, appointment now essential.
Some journals are free to everyone. e.g.:
It's always worth checking the status of a journal via a Google search. Put the journal name in quotes, e.g. "Brazilian Journal of Biology". Older issues are often open access.
Some books are free to everyone. Search Google using the book title and author surname; Google Books and the Internet Text Archive are really useful resources now. For full text in the Internet Text Archive, use this link. Some useful websites include:
PROTA - Plant Resources of Tropical Africa" Very high quality plant profiles of useful plants.
PROSEA - Plant Resources of South east Asia Very high quality plant profiles of useful plants. NB - need to allow pop-ups for this to work.
Lots of authors put their papers online. Search first on Google Scholar, then try putting part of the article title into Google (use advanced search and search for PDFs only), look on Academia.edu, or look for the author's webpages. For example:
Michael Balick Urban and Belize ethnobotany
Stephen Brush Plant genetic resources
Edward Buckler Maize evolution
John Doebley Maize evolution
Dorian Fuller Archaeobotany
Paul Gepts Bean evolution
Ricardo Godoy Amazonian ethnobotany
Will McClatchey Ethnobotany
Mark Nesbitt Various subjects...
Andrea Pieroni European ethnobotany
Christian Vogl Ethnobotany
Jonathan Wendel Cotton evolution
Summary: 5 simple steps to reseaching a subject:
- If researching a plant, check you are using the current name (and any common synonyms), correctly spelt.
- Search on Google Scholar. Download PDFs where indicated as available; consider also downloading citations into reference management system. If possible, search on Kent computer or VPN as you can then click through to subscription PDFs.
- Search Web of Science and major journal sources on Kent web-site; download extra citations/PDFs found. Stop at point of diminishing returns.
- For unavailable papers, paste title into Google to double-check non-availability
- Either email the paper's author for a PDF, or contact Mark Nesbitt who will try to help using other sources.