The Herbarium of Paolo Boccone from the Years 1689–1695 Kept in Wrocław (Poland): Plant Nomenclature, Taxonomy and Biogeography

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Between 1689 and 1695, Paolo Silvio Boccone (1633–1704), an Italian botanist, compiled an herbarium containing 134 plants (or organisms that were considered to be plants at the time), which is currently stored in Wrocław, Poland. The collection mainly comprises species from Sicily and other locations within the central Mediterranean area, as well as some plants from Central and Western Europe. Boccone’s motivation for creating this collection was to seek out rare or unknown plants, both wild and kept in gardens. For the first time, we have identified the plants taxonomically and provided a transcription of their polynomial names (as basonyms of the species) and their geographical locations, as indicated on the original labels in the herbarium. A map of plant locations is provided. Boccone recorded certain plants (introduced later into cultivation or imported to Europe in later centuries) merely as ornamentals kept in gardens. By querying the pharmaceutical literature from the 18th and 19th centuries, we have demonstrated that this is precisely how these exotic rarities came to be recognised as medicinal or industrial plants. Boccone also discovered the rare species Narthecium reverchonii Čelak, which is endemic to Corsica.