Schriften zu Genetischen Ressourcen - Genres

K. PISTRICK
Mansfeld’s Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops
and the Mansfeld phenomenon
K. PISTRICK 1
It is quite a difficult undertaking to discuss a book of 3,600 pages in only a few pages.
Even more so, because the book is an encyclopedia and must be considered as a
classical one: you have to understand the attribute “classical” not in the ironical
sense of the late Rudolf Mansfeld regarding his “Die Technik der wissenschaftlichen
Pflanzenbenennung” (MANSFELD 1949), as “a classic that nobody reads”, but as an
essential book already in several editions (Figure 1) that is being used several times
a week by very many people.
“Mansfeld’s Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops” (HANELT and
INSTITUTE OF PLANT GENETICS AND CROP PLANT RESEARCH 2001) is a classical opus
which stands alone. The “Mansfeld” is not the same as Vul’f and Maleeva’s “Mirovye
resursy poleznych rastenij” (VUL’F and MALEEVA, 1969), Zeven and de Wet’s
“Dictionary of cultivated plants and their regions of diversity” (ZEVEN and DE WET,
1982), Rehm and Espig’s “Die Kulturpflanzen der Tropen und Subtropen” (REHM and
ESPIG, 1996), Sánchez-Monge’s “Flora Agricola” (SÁNCHEZ-MONGE, 1991), nor
Wiersema and León’s “World Economic Plants” (WIERSEMA and LEÓN, 1999).
Nowhere can you find more concise information on accepted scientific names,
synonyms, common names, natural distribution, cultivation area, uses, history of
cultivation and references of all agricultural and horticultural crops (except for
ornamentals) in one place.
To add at least something, please allow me some remarks on how I experienced the
phenomenon “Mansfeld”. I arrived at Gatersleben twenty years after the first edition
of the “Verzeichnis” had been published and nineteen years after the death of Rudolf
Mansfeld (Figure 2).
At that time Mansfeld’s spirit was still very much alive in the Department of
Taxonomy through his former assistants Dr. P. Hanelt and Dr. J. Schultze-Motel and
the photographer Mrs. G. Terpe. I entered an open, pragmatic and diligent
atmosphere.
1 Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research
Department of Taxonomy
Corrensstraße 3
D-06466 Gatersleben, Germany
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