21 世纪的植物狩猎

译/卢屹

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

按照维基百科的定义，“植物采集是指出于研究、培育、爱好等目的，获取活体或干制的植物标本。”

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邱园（英国皇家植物园）的官网给出了更富诗意的定义：“植物猎人是一类非常与众不同的人——是敏锐博学、怀有冒险之心的植物学家；是为寻求极稀有、极美丽的植物而甘冒风险、多行百英里的人。”

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.

植物狩猎的作用何在？

3对大多数人而言，植物猎人采集植物无非是为了种植，之后大概还会将它们引进园艺贸易。

4这就是植物狩猎的定义，有一定的冒险意味。更宽泛的定义还包括为植物园、大学等机构的科学家采集标本、种子、植株，用于分子学、分类学、生物学、生态学等学科研究。这就是通常所说的植物采集。

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…

植物狩猎的意义何在？

5植物狩猎对世界各地的花园产生了巨大影响。如今在花园、公园、温室中常见的植物大多是由18 世纪或19 世纪伟大的植物猎人引进的。

6显然，对于新发现的植物，植物猎人非常关心其审美价值，但这不是他们唯一的关注点。

7从国外采集回来的植物可能含有对未来植物育种颇具价值的基因资源（例如，比当时已知的植物更具抗病性或抗旱性）。实地考察中发现的植物可能成为具有重大经济价值的作物。假如16 世纪没有从南美洲引进马铃薯块茎，那么今天的欧洲料理会是什么样子？

8重要的是，这些植物是科学研究的重要材料，无论是在分类学领域（有些植物可作为“缺失的环节”，帮助解答进化问题），还是在种子与生长生物学、化学（数百种常见药物含有植物或植物源化合物）等领域，不一而足。

9据牛津大学高级研究员、植物采集爱好者约翰·伍德说，全世界有15%—30%的开花植物（约7 万种）尚待发现。这意味着，发现、描述，乃至培育这些未知植物对于更好地了解地球生物多样性至关重要。

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瑞典植物学家卡尔·林奈（Carl Linnaeus，1707—1778）根据对植物生殖器官外表的观察，将植物分为雌、雄两类。他还建立完善了生物命名法则“双名法”，用两个拉丁文（或拉丁化形式）单词来表示每个物种的名称。第一个词是属名，第二个词是种本名，不能脱离属名单独使用。属名为名词，必须以一个大写字母开始；种本名为形容词或同位名词，必须以一个小写字母开始。后面还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.

植物狩猎简史

10植物狩猎的第一个重要时期在18 世纪末。当时，欧洲国家拥有庞大的殖民帝国、求知的渴望、方兴未艾的园林热，以及对一切异域风物（不仅是植物）的浓厚兴趣。也正是在那个时候，林奈分类学推广开来，有助于植物学家、自然学家对自己观察和采集到的成果进行梳理。

11到了19 世纪，植物狩猎成为一项热门活动。邱园、纽约植物园等大型机构得以建立，以支持研究受赞助探险活动带回的植物。

1220 世纪初是植物狩猎的黄金时期，那时政治环境相对稳定，运输条件日益改善，植物生长环境在很大程度上尚未受到破坏。许多“异域”植物因此被引入私家花园和温室。

13接下来，20 世纪30 年代到70 年代，由于战争、危机等原因，植物狩猎活动大为减少。

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约翰·伍德称20 世纪末是植物狩猎的“第二个关键时期”。那时，不少殖民帝国走向终结，促使各国重新确立本国主权。亚洲、非洲、南美洲等地低级别冲突频发。财务资源也有所减少。20 世纪末也是“自然保护运动”的鼎盛时期。该运动提高了国际社会对生物多样性问题的认识，并制定了限制动植物资源贸易的措施（尤其值得一提的是《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》）。

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 世纪的植物狩猎

15由于许多国家开始践行国际公约，又设立了众多植物研究所，一系列法律问题随之而来。约翰·伍德将这类问题称作“法律的灰色阴影”。例如，他可以获批从玻利维亚进口干制标本，却不能进口种子，那么标本本身附着的种子怎么办？有些国家规定只可采集某一科的植物，可有时候要开车或步行5 天才能登顶植物种类丰富的大山，这种情况下，这个限令听起来就特别浪费资源！

16那么，植物狩猎的前景如何？

1）标本馆：如今不少标本馆对标本图像进行了数字化处理，并为腊叶标本分配了条形码，于是信息交流、标本比对较以往容易得多。2 0 1 0年的一篇论文表明，在7万种“尚待描述”的植物中，过半数已被采集并储存在标本馆！由此可见，腊叶标本集是被严重低估的资源，相关研究也十分匮乏。

1) Herbaria: With many herbaria now digitizing images and barcoding their sheets2sheet 此处指腊叶标本（herbarium sheet）。腊叶标本又称压制标本，其制作方法是采集植物的一段带叶枝，或者带花或带果的整株植物体，在标本夹中压平、干燥后装贴在台纸上制成标本。, 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）伪装成其他活动的植物狩猎：由于资金越来越难获取，“传统”分类法正在被DNA 技术等方法取代，将采集植物的考察活动伪装成环境影响研究或自然保护项目，有时可能是唯一的解决方案。然而，这不失为一种高贵的伪装，因为这样做能提高民众对本地生物多样性的认识，向他们传授有用技能，或许还能鼓励他们以可持续的方式使用植物资源。

3）重振研究所：约翰·伍德认为，当今的植物研究所存在诸多问题。它们对植物狩猎或采集缺乏兴趣，以至于如今作出不少重要贡献的反而是热情的业余爱好者。植物研究所不够专注，过分沉迷于数字化、自然保护项目（伍德认为，自然保护应该是地方上的举措），或是数据库建设，而无法持续积累采集成果。有些研究所甚至没有植物采集方针。

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）协作：与当地机构和民众增进协作可创造很多机会。但是困难在于：必须与人接触并建立信任，而且要长期保持联系（这在过去要容易很多，因为植物猎人会进行漫长的探险活动）并共享利益。这是机构办不到的，因为英国工作人员的酬劳远高于当地工作人员。

17说到底，英国植物狩猎的前景极不确定。其他欧洲国家的情况也大同小异，它们的殖民帝国已然消逝。相比之下，中国、巴西、俄罗斯等国植物学家为采集植物而进行的考察活动倒是越来越多，有时候还会去遥远的国度！ □

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! ■