THE WORD HERBARIUM 275 



The sense in which the word is now commonly employed in 

 English books and speech is, according to the New English Dic- 

 tionary, that which it bore when first adopted as an English word. 

 Dr. Murray (I.e.) defines it as "a collection of dried plants sys- 

 tematically arranged ; a hortus siccus ; also a book or case contrived 

 for keeping such a collection ; the room or building in which it is 

 kept"; and proceeds to cite what he presumably considers the 

 two earliest instances of the use of the word. The definition is 

 excellent and comprehensive ; but the dates of both citations 

 require correction. 



The first citation stands :— " 1776 Withering Brit. Plants (1796) 

 i. 35. An Approved Method of Preparing Plants for an Her- 

 barium." Both these dates are wrong. The first edition of 

 Withering does not contain the passage cited, which is however 

 contained in the third edition (1796). But it also appears in the 

 third volume (1793) of the second edition: — "Where no better 

 convenience can be had, the specimens may be disposed sys- 

 tematically in a large folio book ; but a vegetable cabinet, called 

 a Hortus siccus, or an Herbarium, is, upon all accounts, more 

 ehgible. In plate xii. you have a section of an Herbarium, in the 

 true proportions it ought to be made, for containing a compleat 

 collection of British plants." Judging from the way in which 

 (pp. 1, li) it is used in the third edition (1796) the word would 

 appear to have been then in common use, as Withering employs 

 it more than once—" the specimen of any plant intended for the 

 Herbarium " (i. 33) — and his correspondent Mr. Whateley also 

 uses it. 



Dr. Murray's second quotations runs: — "1794 Martyn Rous- 

 seau's [Letters on] Bot. viii. 77. A hortus siccus or herbarium, 

 by which Latin terms we call a collection of dried plants." This 

 quotation — in which "viii" is the number of Eousseau's letter, 

 not, as would appear, of a volume — is from " the third edition, 

 with corrections and improvements" (1791) ; the words "or her- 

 barium " (which also occur in the heading of the letter) do not 

 appear in the first edition (1785), nor are they in the table of 

 contents in 1791, where the letter is described as "viii. The 

 manner how to form an Hortus Siccus, or collection of dried 

 plants." Chronologically, then, Martyn's use of the word ante- 

 dates Withering, though it may be noted that both hortus siccus 

 and herbarium are printed by Martyn in italics, and are styled 

 " Latin terms." 



Dr. Murray, however, does not mention another meaning of 

 the word Herbarium, to which it is the object of the present note 

 to call attention. "Herbary," he shows, had the signification 

 both of a collection of dried plants and of a place where herbs are 

 grown ; he cites Percivall's Spanish Dictionary (1591) as an 

 example of its use in the former sense, though I am not convinced 

 that it may not apply to the latter. It was certainly employed in 

 this latter sense at the beginning of the last century. In vol. i. 

 part 2 of the Transactions of the Dublin Society was issued a 

 Catalogue of Plants in the Society's garden at Glasnevin (1800) 



