BOTANICAL MUSEUM 151 



THE BOTANICAL MUSEUM 



Whilst they (as Homer's Iliad in a nut) 



A world of wonders in one closet shut. TRADESCANT Epitaph. 



It would seem probable that the first museum-specimens of plants 

 owned by the University, were exhibited with Tradescant's collection of 

 curiosities in 1683 ; but with other things, they would have become dilapi- 

 dated through neglect and have been thrown away. 



Early museums generally had a botanical side. One of the most valued 

 specimens in the Thoresby Collection at York was a pineapple-leaf; and 

 the Sloane Collection (1753), which formed the nucleus of the British 

 Museum, comprised 334 dried plants. 



Among the Ashmolean Collections (circ. 1830) were M. Louis Calamai's 

 wax models of 24 Italian fungi and a collection of the skeletons of 

 leaves and seed-vessels of 32 plants in a glazed frame, presented 

 by J. S. Duncan, and catalogued in detail in the printed catalogue of 

 1836. There were also a bamboo cane, 60 ft. in length, in two 

 pieces, the lower part of which had a circumference of 16 in., a branch 

 of the cork-tree, and numerous specimens of economic interest from 

 the Southern Hemisphere. These latter included specimens of bread- 

 fruit; a branch of the Lagetto tree, N.S.W. ; oily nuts from the Doo-doo 

 tree ; mulberry-tree slings and cloth ; New Zealand flax ; also paintings 

 of John Tradescant and of G. Fairchild,* botanists, and of tulips and 

 of the fern called the Lamb of Tartary, the Polypodiiuii barometz, Linn. 



In the year 1859, Dr. Daubeny, with the co-operation of 

 Mr. Baxter, Sen., arranged in systematic order, in the cases 

 of the Sherard Room (the room over the old Western Con- 

 servatory), various specimens illustrative of the structure, 

 functions, and uses of Vegetables, for which no place could 

 be assigned in the Herbarium. 



The specimens comprised a collection of seed-vessels, seeds, 

 stems, roots, and other organs of plants, together with products 

 useful or ornamental, that have been obtained from their 

 several parts. The whole was modestly described as a humble 

 attempt to set up something in Oxford, in imitation of the inter- 

 esting Museum at Kew, in connection with the Royal Botanic 

 Garden under the superintendence of Sir William Hooker. 



* Now hung in the Botanic Library ; other specimens have disappeared. 



