Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1151

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

1 volume (2 folders)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Album of British mosses, 1854-1873, Ms. Coll. 1151, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1854-1873 (inclusive)

Form:

Specimens, Scrapbooks, Manuscripts, English -- 19th century, and Prints (visual works)

Abstract:

An album of 101 leaves containing a herbarium of British mosses with collected botanical specimens spanning the years from 1854 to 1870.

A green, leather-bound album with 101 leaves containing a herbarium of British mosses with collected botanical specimens spanning the years 1854 to 1870. The album appears to be arranged by a classification from a catalogue of British mosses. Each leaf is numbered in the upper right corner. Printed black-and-white illustrations--possibly cut out from a book--of the mosses are on each leaf of the volume. Pasted below the black-and-white image is a collected moss specimen. Noted beside each moss specimen is the date and place of collection, and in many cases the initials of the collector. There appears to be several contributors to the volume, but the compiler is unnamed. The orders of mosses and names are written on each leaf. Some leaves, specifically leaves fifty-one to eighty-six, have only the illustrations with a space left for a specimen. The following items laid in the volume are now contained in Folder 1. There is a slim, lined note book with numbered leaves, thirteen to twenty-four, comprising a handwritten list of mosses with the corresponding leaf number in the herbarium. There are two leaves of notes in chart form, one entitled "Science gossip" and the other "Transactions of the botanical Edinburgh, 1858 to 1868." There are two handwritten bifolia with notations entitled "Catalogue of British mosses, arranged after the method of Schimper's synopsis muscorum, and containing the new species, March 1866." Lastly, in Folder 1 are two printed items, one is a bifolia entitled "Catalogue of British mosses, compiled from the latest sources, by Henry Boswell, 1873" and an order subscription form for Water-life. The other leaves laid in the volume contained in Folder 2 are drying papers used as a middle stage in collecting botanical specimens. Some of the papers are labeled with specimen names. Once the mosses were dry they were placed in the appropriate place in the herbarium.