Garden catalogues as sources for studying the collection and transmission of plants: Madeiran plants in the Ajuda botanical garden as a case-study

Abstract This paper considers the use of plant lists and related documents in addressing questions about the collection and circulation of plants and plant knowledge. The focus is on plants cultivated in Lisbon’s Ajuda botanical garden up to the mid-nineteenth century, and additionally on plants from the island of Madeira. Three plant catalogues, prepared between the early 1770s and mid-1840s, are analysed, together with register books and documents that habitually accompanied plant shipments sent to the garden. The study shows which plants were present in the garden and how the collection evolved, as well as which world regions were represented. In comparing Madeiran plants listed as present in the garden with those documented as being shipped from the island in the late 1790s, the paucity of shared names is striking. On the one hand, this may reflect document loss, while on the other it suggests that Madeiran plants may have been transported from their native range to other European locations by means of complex exchange networks.