Brief introduction of Otto's hand-painted color plant atlas

Otto Wilhelm Thomé(184-1925) is a German botanist and plant artist. His most outstanding work is Flora von Deutschland &: Ouml; sterreich und der Schweiz）。 This is a pictorial book of painted plants suitable for schools and families. It was first printed in 1885 and contains 7 colorful hand-drawn drawings involving 697 species. The book was reprinted in 193 after being supplemented by Walter Migula. The illustrations in the book are very beautiful, and each picture gives the Latin name of the plant and the family name to which it belongs. Almost every picture is accompanied by the anatomical map of flowers and fruits besides the plant shape map, which has important reference value for our plant taxonomists, especially for botanists or university teachers.

Peking University Publishing House edited and sorted out the book, and selected 298 pictures, which belong to 112 families and 277 genera, and translated the Latin scientific names in the original book, giving Chinese names and subordinate grades. The concepts in this book adopt the Cronquist system. On the one hand, the plants selected in the book are representative in the distribution of families and genera, on the other hand, they are basically plants distributed or seen in China, so they are practical. The re-edited plant arrangement can be divided into three parts: Lycopodium and Pteridophyte, Lepidophyte and Angiosperm. For each part, the family names are sorted by Pinyin, the generic names below the family are sorted by Pinyin, and the generic names below are sorted by Pinyin; There are also Chinese indexes and Latin indexes at the back of the book, which are beneficial to the search of plants.

The publication of this book allows us to learn about plants and appreciate the charm of plant science paintings in the late 19th century, which will definitely have an important impact on the vast number of plant taxonomy enthusiasts. Moreover, the book has important reference value for the teaching of plant taxonomy in colleges and universities.

Otto Wilhelm Thomé' s hand-painted plant atlas is vivid in shape and color, beautifully drawn, and has high artistic appreciation and collection value. At the same time, the atlas shows the morphological characteristics of various parts of plants in detail, including anatomical structures. The display of these features is impossible for ordinary art painting, color photography and even real plant specimens. Therefore, these maps are of great value in plant teaching and plant classification research. Otto's Hand-painted Color Plant Atlas is not only an important reference book for teachers and students majoring in botany, but also for teachers and students of botany in primary and secondary schools. It is also an important guide to learn more about plants in the process of changing many plant photography hobbies into real plant lovers.