Bobart the Elder’s Herbarium Hortus Siccus

Bobart the Elder’s herbarium is the founding collection of Oxford University Herbaria. It is a single, leather-bound, elephant-folio, book herbarium of c. 2,800 specimens, arranged alphabetically by polynomial name. There is no mention of this volume in most histories of the University collections since it appears to have been loaned out in the early eighteenth century and not returned until the early 1950s (Savage, 1948). On the pastedown of the inside back cover there is a note stating ‘Octob: 6: 1687 the number of Plants in this was 2577’. The number and diversity of specimens represented in the collection show it must have been started much earlier; internal evidence indicates at least 1660.

Specimens on this page include the ornamental ‘Canna Indica sive Arundo florida’ (top left), a species introduced as a garden plant from the Americas, two sorts of chilli pepper (bottom right; rare in cultivation in the seventeenth century) and two sorts of lady’s smock (bottom left) – the common type with single flowers and a mutant (‘flo[re] pleno’) with double flowers – which were probably collected locally.

The other prominent plant (centre and top right) is cannabis; the two specimens are labelled ‘Cannabis foemina Female Hemp’ and ‘Cannabis mas Male Hemp’. Cannabis one of the flowering plants that have separate male and female plants, like the date palm. However, the genders of the plants are wrongly ascribed by the names – ‘Cannabis foemina’ is male and ‘Cannabis mas’ is female. The polynomial names probably reflect the stature of the plants; female plants are more robust than the more delicate male plants. Cannabis in the period was a source of fibre for rope making, not a source of hallucinogens. One of the many seventeenth-century common names for cannabis is ‘neckweed’, a reference to its use in nooses.

This herbarium is a working collection for consulting, adding to and annotating. The pages are filled with corrections and additions, mostly in Bobart the Younger’s hand. One mystery in the volume is the meaning of the symbols – a circle, a cross, or a circle through which a cross has been drawn later. All manner of ideas have been investigated, including habit, flowering time, classification system and use, but to no avail.

Reference

Savage, S 1948. A book Herbarium made by Jacob Bobart 1660. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 160: 55.