Schriften zu Genetischen Ressourcen - Genres

A.C. ZEVEN
• Many fruits are depicted. They may have been harvested from single standing volunteer
trees, which remained after negative mass selection (man will have removed ‘disliked’
trees) or from orchards with grafts after positive mass selection (obtained from ‘liked’
trees).
• Bearded and beardless wheat ears have been painted. The latter type look similar to
those of the landrace ‘Zeeuwse Witte’ (Zeeland White).
• Although kale has been depicted and described in herbals this crop is not painted. I
have no explanation for this.
• Jan van de Groen described in the 17 th century in his book De Hovenier, six types of
lettuce. On paintings we find only two types. This author described only one carrot form,
whereas on paintings several are depicted. This indicates that paintings and early descriptions
complement each other.
Final conclusion
Paintings with vegetables, some arable crops and many ornamental plants depicted, form
a rich source for the study of the evolution of cultivated crops.
References
ZEVEN, A.C. and G.J. STEMERDINK (1986): A cluster analysis of eight mediaeval manuscripts
based on depicted plant taxa. - Journ. d’Agric. et Bot. Appl. 33, 225-241.
ZEVEN, A.C. and W.A. BRANDENBURG (1986): Use of paintings from the 16 th to 18 th centuries
to study the history of domesticated plants. - Economic Botany 40, 397-408. [Also
published as: Gemälde alter flämischer und holländischer Meister als Wegweiser des
Werdegangs unserer Kulturpflanzen. - Veröff. Landw.-Chem. Bundesanstalt Linz: 19
(1988) 13-21.]
ZEVEN, A.C. (1996): Sixteenth to eighteenth century depictions of cole crops (Brassica
oleracea L.), turnips (B. rapa L. cultivar group Vegetable turnips) and radish (Raphanus
sativus L.) from Flanders and the present-day Netherlands. Proc. Intern. Symp.
on Brassica/Ninth Crucifer Genetics Workshop 407, pp. 29-33. [Also published in
Tendencias Actuales en Genetica-1996, pp. 73-77.]
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