Haslemere Educational Museum
Natural History
Botany
This large collection of approximately 65,000 items consists primarily of British specimens. Most of these, about 62%, are pressed herbarium specimens of flowering and non-flowering plants. Other types of specimens include plant galls, seeds, liverworts, mosses, conifers and wood sample blocks. A collection of non-plants includes lichens, fungi and algae. Of all the collections, botany has the richest field collection data with well-recorded donor details. Much of this material´s primary value is as a research resource.Amongst the named collectors is Colonel Linley F. Messel (1899–1971). His collection was donated in 1956 and consists of small wooden block samples from around the world. The Joshua Lamb (1856–1943) collection of British wild flowers was collected in the late 1800s. The more unusual Lightfoot Collection comprises a large selection of plants collected over the Victorian period by Miss Lightfoot, with each specimen accompanied by a poem. These named collections provide a brief insight into the scope of the botany collection and reflect a concentration of collection from the 1800s to the mid-twentieth century.
We also have permanent display of common wild plants in our reception hall, a tradition that first began in 1893. The "Flower Table" gives visitors an opportunity to see a wide range of live species at close quarters and encourages an interest in native plants, some of which are often thought of as weeds.
Download Botany at Haslemere Museum leaflet (PDF File 2.1Mb)Highlights from the Collection
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| Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur, L.) |
This gall was formed in the Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur, L.) by a fly (Cynips kollari Hartig 1843). It was collected from St Georges Down, Isle of Wight January 1921. Ernest William Swanton (1870–1958) was the Curator of Haslemere Educational Museum for over 50 years. He was an expert in many fields of natural history but had a particular interest in plant galls. In 1912 he published British Plant Galls, detailing all the gall-inducing species in Britain at that time.
Swanton´s considerable collection of roughly 200 items is cared for and researched at Haslemere Museum. Most of the specimens are from southern England and were collected in the first half of the 20th century.
The Miss Lightfoot Collection is stored in 16 volume albums and contains over 750 English vascular plants. They were collected between the 1850s and 1880s with the majority from the 1870s. Each plant has a poem accompanying it.
The Lightfoot Collection provides a fascinating glimpse into common British wild plants in the Victorian period and reflects changes that have occurred since then over the last 150 years.
| Extinct | |
|---|---|
| Tephroseris palustris (L.) Fourr. | Marsh fleawort |
| Extinct in the Wild | |
| Filago gallica L. | Narrow-leaved cudweed |
| Critically Endangered | |
| Centaurea calcitrapa L. | Red star-thistle |
| Galeopsis angustifolia Ehrh. ex Hoffm. | Red hemp-nettle |
| Scandix pecten-veneris L. | Shepherd's-needle |
| Endangered | |
| Ajuga chamaepitys (L.) Schreb. | Ground-pine |
| Campanula rapunculus L. | Rampion bellflower |
| Carum carvi L. | Caraway |
| Dianthus armeria L. | Deptford pink |
| Gnaphalium sylvaticum L. | Heath cudweed |
| Lithospermum arvense L. | Field gromwell |
| Mentha pulegium L. | Pennyroyal |
| Sium latifolium L. | Greater water-parsnip |
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| Corn Cockle (Agrostemma githago L.) collected from Rottingdean cliffs, East Sussex, England, in July 1877, with accompanying poem. |
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining.
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves with soft and silver lining,
Buds that will open only to decay;
Everywhere about us they are glowing,
Some like the stars that tell us Spring is gone,
Others with their eyes overflowing,
Stand like Ruth among the alien corn.
Longfellow
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| Mosses from the genus Andraea Ehrh. These particular specimens are collected from mountains across Britain. |
This collection includes all known species of mosses in Great Britain up to 1849. The pages are bound together in one volume and are beautifully preserved. It includes many rare species and a few specimens from Germany and North America.
