Farlow Herbarium of Harvard University 
Index to the Moss Herbarium of Thomas Taylor 
The Taylor cryptogamic herbarium, containing mosses, hepatics 
and lichens, was presented to Harvard by John Amory Lowell, who 
purchased it on the advice of Asa Gray in 1849. The moss section, 
here indexed, contains 4036 specimens. Taylor was born, probably 
in the 1780's though the date is uncertain, in the "East Indies," 
where his father was Colonel in the East Indian Army. He attended 
Trinity College, Dublin, taking the B.A. in 1807 and the M.D. in 
1813/14. After practicing medicine in Dublin for about ten years, 
he removed to Cork, and was Professor of Natural History at the 
short-lived Royal Institution of that city. Before 1832 he retired 
to the village of Dunkerron, near Kenmare, in County Kerry, where 
he died in February 1848. 
Taylor collaborated with W. J. Hooker on the first (1 January 
1818) and second (early 1827) editions of Muscologia Britannica. 
Other major publications were on collections of William Jameson from 
Ecuador and James Drummond from Australia. The herbarium has 
specimens, including isotypes, of Taylor's friends and correspondents, 
particularly the Hookers, William Wilson, Dawson Turner, and Archibald 
Menzies. There are smaller but valuable groups of specimens, acquired 
at first or second hand, such as the 41 from the Hedwig-Schwaegrichen 
herbarium, and some from the herbaria of Dillenius, Palisot de 
Beauvois, and Dickson. Although it was the hepatics and lichens of 
