4 Adamson and Crabtree, The HerbtxriiiDi of John Daiton 



title page in Latin, commencing " Hortus siccus sue Plantarum 

 diversarum . . ." Subsequent references do not clear up the 

 matter. In 1874, Lonsdale speaks of a "Herbarium" in the 

 Manchester Public Library, and a " Hortus Siccus " in the possession 

 of Mr. Heywood. The former he had in all probability seen, while 

 the latter entry may well have been copied from Angus Smith. 

 In 1875, Leo Grindon describes ten volumes of the "Herbarium" 

 in the Public Library, but in the Dictionary of National Biography 

 it is stated (v. 5, 1908, p. 429) that "He (Daiton) compiled a 

 ' Hortus siccus ' in eleven volumes, possessed a few years ago by 

 Mr. T. P. Heywood, of the Isle of Man ; while his herbarium is still 

 preserved in the Manchester Public Library." This last is the 

 collection under consideration, and was presented to the Literary 

 and Philosophical Society in 1886. Apart from these quotations 

 there does not seem any evidence at all that Daiton made two 

 collections, and considering the evidence that the collection itself 

 affords, and the direct evidence of letters, we may safely conclude that, 

 whatever its history during the period from 1844 till 1858, the 

 " Hortus Siccus " and the " Herbarium " are one and the same. 



The collection consists of eleven volumes of varying thickness, 

 consisting of plain paper. The plants are pasted down on the 

 right-hand pages, while the name, in Latin and English, with some- 

 times, though not always, the source or locality are given on the 

 left-hand pages. In a few cases further notes on points of interest 

 are given. Each volume has at its commencement an index in 

 Dalton's handwriting of the contents, and the first and second volumes, 

 in addition, have a title page in copperplate writing. The last (eleventh) 

 volume is less than half completed, and on some of the blank pages in 

 this volume we have taken the liberty of mounting a small number of 

 loose specimens, some of which were found in a contemporary journal, 

 and some found in a volume in the library, with a slip of paper 

 inscribed " Mr. Daiton." Except in the case of large specimens 

 there are nearly always more than one to each page. Unfortunately 

 this desire to fill each page not infrequently lessens the botanical 

 value of the collection, as many of the specimens are rather small 

 and incomplete. 



In all there are 954 entries in the eleven volumes, of which 

 seventy-two are non-vascular cryptograms which have not been studied 

 carefully so far.* The remainder represent 864 different varieties of 

 vascular plants. These, however, include a number of garden plants. 

 The last volume especially consists largely of garden specimens. 



The nomenclature employed is apparently that of Withering's 

 "Arrangement of British Plants," at that time the only flora available 

 which was written in English. The third edition of this work, issued 



* It is hoped that a full examination of these may be made shortly. 



