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2 labels for identifying part of the process of India Rubber / Gutta Percha production and 7 book plates on note paper forming a small collection. Book plates: Churchill Babington, John Hutton Balfour, Henry Collins, Daniel Cresswell, Sir Compton Domvile, William Watson and 1 unidentified.
Collection consists of Mairi Planner's research into the Edinburgh nurserymen Downie, Laird and Laing, including material used in exhibiting the research. Mairi's great great grandfather Andrew Robertson Annan worked for the firm in the 1860s before moving to the Ravelston Estate in Edinburgh where he became Head Gardener - in researching him, Planner became interested in the nurserymen he worked for.
3 printed annual reports (3 x 4 pages, 200 x 250mm) of The Botanical Museum & Library at Cambridge University; dated 25 March 1828, 25 March 1829, 25 March 1830. The 1828 report outlines the start of a proper funded botanical museum. Prof Henslow lists present acquisitions and solicits help in augmenting the collection. The 1829-30 reports demonstrate success in increasing the collection of plant samples and publications.
Plant labels found by members of the RBGE Horticulture Department and transferred to the Archives: 1: Magnolia acuminata, United States - found to the east of the copse, RBGE; a label intended to hang from the tree, this type of label had the impressed letters painted white by hand, then the entire label was hand painted black - would have been surrounded by a metal holder which has since decomposed - probably dates to around 1940? 2: Ilex laevigata; a temporary label found during excavations for the new Alpine House, 2012 - small label attached to wire which would have been pushed into the ground - probably dates to c.1960? 3: Viburnum dilatatum, c.1960? - temporary label from new Alpine House area. 4: Viburnum farreri - 'layers' - found in Nursery, troughs area - used when 'layering' viburnum - obtaining shoots from roots or branches. 5: Alpinia calcarata 6: Rhododendron hodgsonii 7: LA47
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Horticulture Department
box containing progress reports of the Scottish Seaweed Research Association based at the Institute of Seaweed Research in Musselburgh. There are also Newsletters, and correspondence with William Wright Smith, all arranged chronologically.
5 boxes of slides, totalling around 400 slides, and an envelope "Botanic Garden Notes" (now in Box 1) of news clippings relating to the opening of the Glasshouses.
1 album containing ephemera to do with the Balfour professors; John Hutton Balfour, Isaac Bayley Balfour and John Cleland, plus other papers of interest.