Schriften zu Genetischen Ressourcen - Genres

Inventorying food plants in France
Other examples include Brassica rapa Cima di Rapa Group, which is commonly sold in
France as a broccoli. I assume that it is a newcomer in France, imported from Italy. Only
botanists will notice that true broccoli from Brassica oleracea commonly have bluish
leaves, and not bright green.
More important is the case of Cucumis melo Flexuosus Group, which has constantly
been taken as a cucumber. I found it once in a supermarket as Armenian cucumber. But
I discovered that the confusion has been constant in history, because this fruit has the
shape of a cucumber, is collected immature as a cucumber, and processed and eaten
as a cucumber. Only botanists are clever enough to identify it by its distinct ridges. The
importance of this cultivar-group of melon is so great in the eastern part of the Mediterranean
that I now think that historical data about ‘cucumbers’ have to be revisited. In the
Bible, the ‘cucumbers’ that the Hebrews remembered having eaten in Egypt were
probably this kind of melon.
Lessons and recommendations
The need for applied botany
The examples given above illustrate the interest of mobilizing information in the field of
applied botany as a tool of technical and market monitoring, and as a tool of identification
for the enforcement of regulations, or their adaptation (e.g., Novel Food Directive).
Applied botany is also a necessary basis to implement our commitments towards sustainable
development and the rational use of biodiversity. At a time when biology is
concentrating more and more on a couple of model species, we need to organize in
order to maintain a good level of expertise about the diversity of plants.
In particular, documenting and monitoring the use and market of minor, exotic and wild
food plants could best be done through a European network.
The interest of interdisciplinary approach
Integrating information from many disciplines is a nightmare for the writer, but opens
fascinating opportunities for research. Compiling information on many species allows a
comparative approach of the history of agriculture and human peoples. Since the landmark
publication of Alphonse DE CANDOLLE (Origine des plantes cultivées, 1883), no
synthesis has been published with such a broad scope. There are of course many reasons
for that, one being the trend towards specialization in science, and another the gap
between biological and social sciences. However, the wealth of data accumulated by
the different disciplines allows now to offer new syntheses. The new developments of
molecular genetics, by allowing us to overpass the limits of morphological descriptions,
open new questions that make necessary to revisit historical, linguistic and archaeological
data.
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