Flowering Plants and Ferns
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of over 85,000 flowering plant and fern specimens. These date from the late18th century to the present. The collection comprises ‘vascular plants’ – the ‘higher’ flowering plants and ferns – and a small supplementary collection of fruit, seed and timber samples. The specimens are in the form of herbarium sheets, comprising pressed and dried plant samples mounted on to thick paper and stored in species folders. The majority of the specimens are from Scotland, but include many areas of British and Irish Isles from a range of collectors, including from botanical exchange clubs. There are nearly 15,000 specimens from overseas, including over 6,000 specimens from Europe and over 8,500 from more exotic locations, chiefly the Indian subcontinent and the Americas. The Glasgow University collection (GL) is the largest with about 40,000 specimens, closely followed by the museum’s civic collection (GLAM) comprising over 36,000 specimens, and the smallest that of Strathclyde University (GGO) which exceeds 9,000 specimens. Notable collections and collectors represented include the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, Prof G Walker Arnott, R Wight, D Steuart, P Ewing, R Kidston, W Gourlie, L Watt, J R Lee, G Horn, A A R Henderson, Prof. J Scouler, Prof R Hennedy, R Mackechnie, the Flora of Glasgow project, Dr P Macpherson and Prof J H Dickson.
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