Herbarium

Helianthus annuus

Sunflower

Compositae

1561: Birth of Basilius Besler, son of Michael Besler, in Nuremberg on the 13th February.

1586: Besler marries Rosine Flock.

1596: Second marriage to Susanne Schmidt. From his two marriages, Besler would have sixteen children altogether.

1589–1629: Besler manages the apothecary shop Zum Marienbild in Nuremberg. There he creates and maintains a botanical garden as well as a collection of curiosities (Naturalienkabinett).

1597: The bishop of Eichstatt commissions Besler to create a botanical garden at Willibaldsburg. He designs a garden of one hectare comprising eight terraces. To realise this, Besler turns to the botanists Charles de l’Écluse, Joachim Camerarius le Jeune and Ludwig Jungermann for help.

Following this, Besler undertakes an inventory of the rare and little-known plants of the time.

Introductory plate: Portrait of Basilius Besler

1607: Birth of his nephew Michel-Basile Besler.

1613: Besler publishes his Hortus Eystettensis in Eichstatt and Nuremberg. The work brings together 1,084 species of plants, classed in order of appearance according to the seasons, comprising 367 plates engraved using intaglio techniques, principally by Wolfgang Kilian. Printed in black and white, the herbarium was coloured by painters engaged by the richest buyers of the work.

1616: Publication of engravings of the rarest “products” of nature, which he had brought together in his collection of curiosities.

1627: Hieronymus Besler, Basilius’ brother, prints a new edition of the Hortus Eystettensis, a less lavish version with just 96 plates.

1629: Basilius Besler dies on the 13th March in Nuremberg.

1646–1648: Michel-Basile Besler publishes Mantissa ad Viretum stirpium Eystettense, as a complement and homage to his uncle’s Hortus Eystettensis.

A herbarium, or Hortus Siccus, is a collection of plants that have been dried and preserved so as to illustrate as far as possible their different characters. Since the same plant, owing to peculiarities of climate, soil and situation, degree of exposure to light and other influences may vary greatly according to the locality in which it occurs, it is only by gathering together, for comparison and study, a large series of examples of each species that the flora of different regions can be satisfactorily represented. Even in the best-equipped botanical garden it is almost impossible to have more than a very small percentage of the representatives of the flora of any given region or large group of plants. Hence, a good herbarium forms an indispensable part of a botanical museum or institution. There are large herbaria at the British Museum and at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and smaller collections at the botanical institutions at the principal British universities. Linnaeus’ original herbarium is in the possession of the Linnaen Society of London. It was purchased from the widow of Linnaeus by Dr. (later Sir) J. E. Smith, one of the founders of the Linnaen Society, and after his death was bought by the society. Herbaria are also associated with the more important botanical gardens and museums in other countries.

Introductory plate: Hortus Eystettensis

Plantarum Horti Eystæt

Tensis

Claffis Verna

Introductory plate: Spring

I. Ruscus aculeatus

Butcher’s Broom

Liliaceae-Asparagales

II. Philadelphus coronarius

Double-flowered Mock-orange

Hydrangeaceae

III. Philadelphus coronarius

Single-flowered Mock-orange

Hydrangeaceae

I. Cercis siliquastrum

Judas Tree

Leguminosae-Caesalpinia

II. Maianthemum bifolium

False Lily of the Valley

Liliaceae

III. Botrychium lunaria

Moonwort

Ophioglossales-Pteridophyta

IV. Chrysosplenium oppositifolium

Golden Saxifrage

Saxifragaceae

I. Prunus specie

Double-flowered Cherry

Rosaceae

II. Prunus padus

Bird Cherry

Rosaceae

III. Picea abies

Branch and cones of the Norway Spruce

Conifer

The value of a herbarium is much enhanced by the possession of “types”, that is, the original specimens on which the study of a species was founded. Thus the herbarium at the British Museum, which is especially rich in the earlier collections made in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, contains the types of many species founded by the earlier workers in botany. It is also rich in types of Australian plants from the collections of Sir Joseph Banks and Robert Brown, and contains in addition many valuable modern collections. The Kew herbarium, founded by Sir William Hooker and greatly developed by his son Sir Joseph Hooker, also contains many types, especially those of plants described in the Flora of British India and various colonial floras. The collection of Dillenius is deposited at Oxford, and that of Professor W. H. Harvey at Trinity College, Dublin. The collections of Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, his son Adrien and August de St. Hilaire are included in the large herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. In in the same city is the extensive private collection of Dr. Ernest Cosson. In Geneva are three large collections – Augustin Pyramede Candolle’s, containing the typical specimens of the