Dissertatio Botanica de Palmis [Palms]

Palms comprise a group of 181 genera totaling 2600 species of plants in tropical, sub-tropical, and temperate ecosystems. Originating from a single ancestor species but now highly diverse due to adaptive radiation, palms have been economically important since being cultivated in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago. They are the focus of this university dissertation written by Professor Carl Peter Thunberg. In 18th- and 19th-century Europe, professors wrote the dissertations; the student’s job was to explicate and defend it and pay for its publication. SIL holds dozens of these botanical and zoological papers by the great systematist Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) at the University of Uppsala and his student and successor Thunberg.