1971/08/01 by Ronald L. Stuckey · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Botany, Ecology, and Taxonomy Studies #Plant Diversity and Evolution #Plant and animal studies #Herbarium #Estate #Executor #Archaeology #Compendium #Geography #History #Genealogy #Library science #Political science #Law #Botany #Biology #Computer science
paper · doi:10.2307/1218245
openalex publication_date 1971/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Summary One of the major facets in the development of botany in America during the latter part of the eighteenth and the early portion of the nineteenth century was the preparation of private pressed plant collections or herbaria. When these herbaria were no longer needed by their owners, they were either given or bequeathed to a public institution, sold privately, or auctioned publicly. The first known public auction of a private herbarium in America occurred in Philadelphia on the 3rd of June 1833. Owned by the late Zaccheus Collins, well‐known Quaker philanthropist and botanist, this herbarium included (1) plants Collins collected in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and plants from various parts of the United States obtained by exchange with his friends, (2) an extensive collection of exotic plants, and (3) the entire herbarium of the late William Baldwin. At the auction the first two parts were acquired by the executor of the estate, and the latter was purchased by Daniel Steinhauer for the Rev. Lewis David von Schweinitz. In amalgamating the Baldwin plants with his own, Schweinitz replaced the original data with a cryptic notation for each specimen, thereby creating problems for future botanists. Schweinitz's herbarium was bequeathed to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. That portion of Collins' herbarium belonging to the executor was later acquired by C. S. Rafinesque as a partial settlement of a claim Rafinesque had against the Collins estate. After Rafinesque's death, Elias Durand purchased the Rafinesque herbarium. Durand selected out Collins' plants and discarded most of Rafinesque's own plants. Collins' plants evidently formed a large part of Durand's herbarium which he gave to the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, where it remains today as a separate collection. A summary of the numbers of taxa described from specimens in Baldwin's and Collin's herbaria as determined from major selected publications are eight described by Baldwin himself, 109 described from Baldwin's specimens by other botanists, and 103 described from specimens in Collins' herbarium by Rafinesque.