8 Notices of European Herbaria. 
* 
The Linnean Society also possesses the proper herbarium of 
its founder and first president, Sir James E. Smith, which is a 
beautiful collection, and in excellent preservation. The speci- 
mens are attached to fine and strong paper, after the method now 
common in England. In North American botany, the chief con- 
tributors are Menzies, for the plants of California and the North 
West Coast; and Muhlenberg, Bigelow, Torrey, and Boott, for 
those of the United States. Here also we find the cryptogamic 
collections of Acharius, containing the authentic specimens des- 
cribed in his works on the Lichens, and the magnificent East In- 
dian herbarium of Wallich, presented some years since by the 
East India Company. 
The collections preserved at the British Museum, are scarcely 
inferior in importance to the Linnzan herbarium itself, in aiding 
the determination of the species of Linneus and other early 
authors. Here we meet with the authentic herbarium of the 
Hortus Cliffortianus, one of the earliest works of Linneus, 
which comprises some plants that are not to be found in his own 
proper herbarium. Here also is the herbarium of Plukenet, 
which consists of a great number of small specimens crowded, 
without apparent order, upon the pages of a dozen large folio 
volumes. With due attention, the originals of many figures in 
the Almagestum and Amalthewm Botanicum, &c., may be re- 
cognized, and many Linnean species thereby authenticated. 
The herbarium of Sloane, also, is not without interest to the 
North American botanist, since many plants described in the Voy- 
age to Jamaica, §c., and the Catalogue of the planis of Jamaica, 
were united by Linnzeus, in almost every instance incorrectly, 
with species peculiar to the United States and Canada. But still 
more important is the herbarium of Clayton, from whose notes 
aud specimens Gronovius edited the Flora Virginica.* Many 
Linnean species are founded on the plants here described, for 
which this herbarium is alone authentic; for Linnzeus, as we 
have already remarked, possessed very bier of Gayton’ s plants. 
turn thither in the course of a year, that he may visit thoes mountains, and let me 
know whether the same alpine plants are found there as in Europe.” o can 
this American student have been? Kuhn did not visit Linneus sail more than 
— years after the ‘date of this letter. 
Flora Virginica, exhibens plantas quas J. Clayton i in Virginia collegit. 
Bat. Svo. 1743.—Ed. 2. 4to. 1762. The first editiomw is cited in the Species Pak 
tarum of Linneus; the second, again, quotes the specific phrases of Linneus, 
* al 
