Science and Civilisation in China, Part 4, Traditional Botany: An Ethnobotanical Approach

Georges Métailié is Emeritus Director of Research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, and member of the Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris, France. Beginning with the study of ancient Chinese botanical knowledge, he is now mainly working on the comparative study of the history of knowledge about plants and animals in China and Japan since the sixteenth century. For more than twenty years, he has been lecturing at the National Museum for Natural History in Paris in the field of ethnobotany. He is an honorary fellow of the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge, UK, a foreign member of the Washington Academy of Sciences, USA, and received, in 2006, with Francine Fèvre, the Auguste Chevalier Award of the Académie des Sciences in Paris, France.

'Metailie has written not merely a supplement, but a new and original history of Chinese botany, one that puts Cullen's caveat into perspective.' Herman Reichenbach, Archives of Natural History

• List of abbreviations; Series editor's preface; Author's note; 1. Sources of traditional botany and the various classifications; 2. The description and illustration of plants; 3. Knowledge of plant life; 4. Horticulture and its techniques; 5. Plants and botanical exchanges. The Chinese contribution to the rest of the world; 6. Conclusion; Bibliographies; Index.