Wendland’s Palms

In the nineteenth century Hermann Wendland (1825–1903) was among the world’s foremost specialists of the palm family (Arecaceae). He developed the Berggarten, part of the Royal Gardens of Herrenhausen, Hannover, as a major centre of palm horticulture and research, establishing Europe’s largest and most comprehensive living collection of cultivated palms, an extensive herbarium and Europe’s tallest glasshouse.

Many undescribed palm species were first cultivated at the Berggarten and some provided the source of seeds for species that subsequently became well established in horticulture. Wendland was praised by his peers as a consummate cultivator of palms and was active in horticultural expositions and botanical congresses.

In this new volume of Englera, palm specialist John Leslie Dowe, from the Australian Tropical Herbarium at James Cook University, describes in detail the Berggarten palm collection as well as the publications, palm classification system and taxonomic output of Wendland on palm genera and species from the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia and the islands of the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

Wendland was one of the most active palm taxonomists in terms of numbers of taxa described. He is associated with at least 549 validly published names, 62 applying to genera and 422 to species. All these names are listed in Appendix 1 of this volume, with their authorship, place of publication, homotypic synonyms, and currently accepted names. There is also a list of Wendland’s publications on the palms and a list of palm genera and species named for Hermann Wendland.