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Apparently as a consequence of this earlier negative attitude research into the botanical vocabulary of Old English was the most neglected area of English vocabulary until the 1970s when Peter Bierbaumer published his three-volume study Der botanische Wortschatz des Altenglischen (1975-79), in which the relevant vocabulary of the texts and glosses mentioned above was completely documented and interpreted. Further, the situation has changed substantially over the last few years as a result of the studies by the Munich Anglicist Hans Sauer, and thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey, founded by Carole Biggam, at the University of Glasgow.

At around the same time Bierbaumer and Sauer, albeit with slightly different focuses, started planning an electronically accessible dictionary of the botanical vocabulary of Old English and a dictionary of Old English plant-names respectively, using Bierbaumer´s earlier study as a starting point. Both scholars felt much could be gained from co-operating together in the publication of this two-year project. This co-operation was established at the Munich conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, organised by Hans Sauer. Whereas Bierbaumer will focus on the documentation and identification of the plant-names, Sauer will mainly deal with morphological and etymological aspects.