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Pressed Plant Greetings Card, presumably sent at New Year, 1937-1938.
The pressed plant is a Maianthemum bifolium and was found in the Herbarium collection of Donald Patton alongside his Maianthemum bifolium specimen with the barcode E01360448 by digitiser Rebecca Camfield. The card was sent from 6 Glenan Gardens, Helensburgh and has the message 'Wishing you all much happiness in 1938'. Rebecca's research shows that the card is likely to have been created by Mrs Elizabeth Ewing and was sent by her to Donald Patton at the end of 1937 / start of 1938; an online search of the address on the card revealed a Watson Botanical Exchange Club member's list from 1926-1927 which provided a name of Mrs Ewing. Searching this name and the address Rebecca learnt that this was Mrs Elizabeth R. Ewing, married in 1901 to Peter Ewing. They had met as both part of the Glasgow and Andersonian Natural History and Microscopical Society, where she met several other prominent botanists. He became the President of said society in 1902, yet dies young in 1913. She became President herself between 1919 and 1920. Their herbarium went to Glasgow Herbarium after her death in 1951 at the age of 90.
In 1951 Donald Patton was the President of the Society according to their journal 'The Glasgow Naturalist' which he also edited. They were in the same circles and were probably friends. So this is highly likely like to be a little card she sent to Donald Patton in 1938 which he placed with his own collection of the species. It could also be as that was the year she resigned as the delegate for the British Association for the society?
Most of the above research was obtained from the Naturalist's obituary written by John R. Lee.
(right click, open link in new tab) https://archive.org/stream/glasgowna141519401946ande/glasgowna141519401946ande_djvu.txt

Poem, written in green ink on handmade paper and inserted into a folded card with ‘a contemplation’ on it. One one side of the paper is ‘Written by Katheryn’s bench by the southern border of the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh on the afternoon of the second day of 2025. John Robertson

Together, a while

If all that remains of me
is a place for others to rest,
a place for others to think,
and to connect
and to see
and to be.

Then put my life down
to the simple achievement
of a humble wooden bench
with a quiet brass plaque,
and on it shall be written:
‘let us dance together, a while’
set away somewhere gentle
at Edinburgh’s Botanical Ceilidh.

John R. 02.01.2025

Manuscript titled 'Localities for New or Rare Mosses in Scotland'.
The names Alexander McKinlay, James Stirton and John Shaw are mentioned as collectors in the manuscript, alongside three dates, 1861, 1864 and 1868. Although not definite, the handwriting in the documents compares very favourably to that of James Hardy (1815-1898), Secretary of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club and compiling a work on Mosses of Berwickshire at the end of the 1860s.

•Letter to W.H. Campbell from Rutherford (8 January 1840)

Sanderson's Prize essay manuscript, ‘The Origin and Development of the Embryo in Phanerogamous Plants’, submitted in July 1849 as part of his Botany course for his Medical degree at the University of Edinburgh. Sanderson has illustrated the manuscript with pencil illustrations drawn from the microscope.
Impressed by the content, Hutton Balfour deemed it worthy of a prize, with part of the content read at a meeting of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh in February 1850.

•Copy of the Scrapbook of Robert Scarlett, containing mostly newspaper articles (1909-1953)

•Two newspaper cuttings, 3 Mar 1913 & 4 Jan 1914, (Isaac Bayley Balfour was a member)

•Seller’s ‘Syllabus of Examinations on Medical Subjects’

•Printed booklet of Lecture; Edinburgh School of Rural Economy 1895 – 1896, “Forest Botany”
•Re-print of “Geographical Distribution of Vegetation in Yorkshire; Part 2 – Harrogate & Skipton District”. From “The Geographical Journal, August, 1903”

•2 copies of letters by or referring to him