WELCOME NOTE

Issue 70: From the Editors

The Bean Bag started in 1974 on the initiative of Charles (Bob) Gunn and Richard Cowan and the first printed issue was distributed almost 49 years ago in May 1975. The aim of the annual newsletter is to keep legume researchers informed about new publications, events and projects focused on the systematics of the family Leguminosae. Bean Bag Number 70 is another bumper issue reporting on diverse aspects of another vibrant and busy year of global legume systematics research.

This year’s Bean Bag includes seven important announcements, reports from the legume phylogeny working groups, a report on the 8th International Legume Conference held in August in Brazil, three digests of 2023 legume papers written by postgraduate students, portraits of three leguminologists – all of them women who worked on interactions of legumes with other groups of organisms – in the Gallery of Leguminologists, spotlights on two botanical artists, new legume species highlights from 2023, and the annual compilation of legume literature in the 2023 bibliography. Also, check out the many photos of spectacular legumes in this issue.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on the Legume Data Portal, which also posts news items of interest to the legume research community. You can read more about the Portal in this issue of the Bean Bag.

A big thank you to Helen Fortune-Hopkins and Euan James for assembling the portraits for the gallery of leguminologists and to Stephen Boatwright and João Iganci for taking care of the artist spotlight this year. We also thank Carole Sinou for assistance with posting the Bean Bag to the Legume Data Portal and Gwilym Lewis at Kew for help with checking this issue and facilitating the archiving of the Bean Bag in the Kew Research Repository. Thanks also to you, the legume community as a whole, and our many contributors for sharing their time and insights.

Colin Hughes (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Warren Cardinal-McTeague (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Leonardo Borges (Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil)

For recent BB issues see: the Legume Data Portal
Earlier issues of the BB (1975 to 2022) are available via the Kew Research Repository

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