Theme for a Systematic Garden
Duration: 2 mins 25 secs
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| Description: | The introductory song to The Ensonglopedia of Plants in which the challenges of sorting plants in a post-DNA world are discussed. We meet Andrew Murray, the Garden's first Curator, and Augustin de Candolle, whose 1813 text book is the intellectual underpinning of the Garden's historic Systematic Beds. |
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| Created: | 2018-11-08 13:44 | ||||||
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| Collection: | The Ensonglopedia of Plants | ||||||
| Publisher: | University of Cambridge | ||||||
| Copyright: | John Hinton | ||||||
| Language: | eng (English) | ||||||
| Distribution: |
World
(downloadable)
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| Keywords: | Murray; de Candolle; Botanic Garden; Systematic; | ||||||
| Credits: |
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| Categories: |
iTunes - Teaching & Learning - Learning Resources iTunes - Science - Biology |
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| Explicit content: | No | ||||||
Transcript
Transcript:
Augustin de Candolle
Was a systematic soul.
He liked to keep his plants in order.
By organising species
By their most obvious features
He worked out their relatedness. Well, sort ‘a.
Our study of genetics
Has replaced the theoretics
Behind the designs of Monsieur de Candolle,
But his work inspired
Andrew Murray’s much admired
Plant layout through which you’re about to take a stroll.
Systematic, systematic, oh systematic
Have you ever seen a panorama quite so cinematic?
Have you ever smelt a garden quite so aromatic?
Or heard of an endeavour quite so idiosynchratic
As Augustin de Candolle’s
Stab at filling all the holes
In our knowledge of the way plants are related,
Or as Andrew Murray’s bid
To concoct the curvy grid
Which in this botanic garden is located?
But they’ve shuffled things about
And they’ve chucked a few things out
As a result of analysing DNA,
They’ve also added lots
Of basal monocots,
Because we know much more about these plants today.
Systematic, systematic, oh systematic
Just because you’re scientific doesn’t mean you stay static
And since parts of Murray’s layout have proved problematic
This Botanic Garden’s opted to update his schematic
Systematic, systematic, oh systematic
Have you ever seen a panorama quite so cinematic?
Have you ever smelt a garden quite so aromatic?
Or heard of an endeavour quite so idiosynchratic
As Augustin and Andrew’s systematic?
Was a systematic soul.
He liked to keep his plants in order.
By organising species
By their most obvious features
He worked out their relatedness. Well, sort ‘a.
Our study of genetics
Has replaced the theoretics
Behind the designs of Monsieur de Candolle,
But his work inspired
Andrew Murray’s much admired
Plant layout through which you’re about to take a stroll.
Systematic, systematic, oh systematic
Have you ever seen a panorama quite so cinematic?
Have you ever smelt a garden quite so aromatic?
Or heard of an endeavour quite so idiosynchratic
As Augustin de Candolle’s
Stab at filling all the holes
In our knowledge of the way plants are related,
Or as Andrew Murray’s bid
To concoct the curvy grid
Which in this botanic garden is located?
But they’ve shuffled things about
And they’ve chucked a few things out
As a result of analysing DNA,
They’ve also added lots
Of basal monocots,
Because we know much more about these plants today.
Systematic, systematic, oh systematic
Just because you’re scientific doesn’t mean you stay static
And since parts of Murray’s layout have proved problematic
This Botanic Garden’s opted to update his schematic
Systematic, systematic, oh systematic
Have you ever seen a panorama quite so cinematic?
Have you ever smelt a garden quite so aromatic?
Or heard of an endeavour quite so idiosynchratic
As Augustin and Andrew’s systematic?