From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2021.
By Julia Beros.
They were found within the herbarium case of lichen specimens, following name and geographic order and next to cases of other lichen specimens. Then in a single cubby above and below other cubbies filled neatly by folders with CLADONIA marked on them, were a stack of lichen reference material filed right where it -could likely- belong. As digitizing the vast holdings of the U.S. National Herbarium makes its rounds of the collection, accruing over 3.5 million images, the conveyor project’s circumstantial overhaul of the Herbarium’s vast holdings has unearthed some one-of-a-kind objects.
Etching of a lichen by James Sowerby, with a species name annotated as “lanatus” and print series number “846” in upper corner, published 1801. The etching was recently found in a folder in the lichen cabinets during the digitization process of lichen specimens.
Sometimes you discover a stray specimen or two and maybe some out-of-place photo slides or glass plates are apt to get misplaced in the herbarium. Museum Specialist Carol Kelloff recalls the time when Emeritus Curator Harold Robinson accidentally refiled a stack of specimens with his unfinished manuscript at the bottom of the pile—and after finding it much later, he published it, post haste! So it is not unlikely, although still surprising, when a stack of beautifully hand-painted original engravings are found amongst packets of aging lichens. Nearing the final cases of imaging and cuing up the Bryophytes and Algae, the digitization project has just imaged the lichen collection, transcribing the label data for inclusion in the database and to be more easily accessible. Including all parts of the herbarium in this project not only rounds out the database, it gives a clearer picture of our holdings, prioritizing needs amongst the collections, and renewing focus in underutilized parts of the collections. In the lichen cabinets, pages delicately torn from original publications of James Sowerby’s engravings are stapled tidily to specimen sheets and annotated with new or confirmed names at the bottom.
The artist James Sowerby (1757–1822), an innate naturalist, studied at the Royal Academy in London and in combining these two passions “decided to be a painter of flowers.” He worked first with botanist William Curtis, who helped Sowerby develop a scientific eye which laid the foundation of his career as a scientific illustrator. His first published engravings that he hand-painted were plates in Curtis’ Flora Londinensis. A prolific illustrator, his work was published in many floras, mineralogy, and zoology books, and his sons, learning the trade from childhood, continued the Sowerby legacy of scientific illustration.