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Newspaper and paper wrappers from an unmounted collection from the herbarium of Dr. Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn.
A box of unmounted specimens from Cleghorn's herbarium and annotated as from ‘Cumbaukum Droog’ [Kambakkam Durgam] was discovered in the basement longstore at RBGE in 2025. It was assessed by Henry Noltie; the specimens were mounted and added to the herbarium collection, and the newspapers and folders used by Cleghorn to wrap his collection were seen as significant enough to be added to the Archive. Henry described the process in a Botanics Story: (right click, open link in new tab) https://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/40144
The Collection includes manuscript lists relating to the Cumbaukan flora and a journal article cutting, made by Cleghorn, from the 1835 volume of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society: an article titled an ‘Account of the Ragery Hills, near Madras’ by a Colonel Monteith.
The specimens were contained in newspaper flimsies dating between 1853 and 1859, most of which were placed in covers made of Indian ‘country’ paper annotated with the numbers and names of 20 plant families. Although the specimens were collected in December 1853, the majority of the newspapers date from 1858/9, presumably when Cleghorn undertook some herbarium curation. They are trimmed to uniform size, c 27 x 44 cm – some more or less whole sheets folded, others cut in half (when the titles are often missing).
The newspapers are of considerable interest, assuming that they were subscribed to by Cleghorn, rather than bought as scrap paper. Two certainly were his as they are inscribed with his name, title, and address while on tour as Conservator of Forests in Salem and Ooty. These tell us something about his reading habits and suggest a great thirst for news both Indian and from Britain. Also used was also a pamphlet advertising a Madras ‘Periodical Horse Mart’ revealing a previously unknown, though unsurprising, interest in horse flesh; and proof that he subscribed to the Gardeners’ Chronicle, suspected but previously unproven. Of the Indian newspapers was one published in Bangalore (The Bangalore Herald) and seven in Madras (Madras Circulator, The Commercial Gazette, United Service Gazette, The Athenaeum, The Madras Times, The Madras Spectator and the official government Fort St George Gazette). Of those published in Britain the largest number of sheets are from The Overland Mail, with smaller numbers from four others (The Indian News, The Morning Herald, The Record and The Examiner). There is also a single half-sheet from an unidentified Fife newspaper to show that he kept up with news from Scotland.
The articles in the papers dating from 1858/9 are of particular interest, with many articles discussing the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny. Interesting though the ‘news’ items are, the papers are equally intriguing for the advertisements and aspects of social history revealed. described here are only a few items that were noticed while cataloguing the plants: a meeting of the Madras Photographic Society attended by Sir Walter Elliot (6 April 1858); the opening of the organ by William Hill in St George’s Cathedral (13 September 1858); stained glass fanlights for the cathedral designed by Archibald Cole, Professor Fine Arts in the Madras School of Industrial Art, made by Nathaniel Wood Lavers of London (later Lavers, Barraud & Westlake) (21 January 1859); an advertisement by J. Deschamps offering three pianos by Erard (1 mahogany grand of 7 octaves; 1 mahogany grand square of 6¾ octaves; 1 rosewood cottage of 6¾ octaves) and 1 mahogany grand square by Broadwood (May 1854); J.J. Fonceca & Co offering ‘Likenesses either in Oil, Water Colors, or Crayon … Landscape and Cattle Drawings … charges so regulated with a view to place their services within reach of all (21 January 1859); an auction by Oakes, Partridge and Co. offered a by then very old fashioned ‘square piano by T. Tomkison, in good order’ (6 July 1853).

Five duplicate reprints from the RBGE Library reprint collection (the reprints were to be withdrawn from the collection as the articles are in published journals in the Library Collection; however, as there are so few traces of the Chinese botanists who travelled to Edinburgh in the 1930s/40s to study, a decision was made to retain these as a way of preserving the memory of Feng-Hwai Chen at RBGE; it appears at least one may have his handwriting on a dedication to WW Smith.

• ‘A preliminary study on the vegetation of the Ching-Po-Hu lake and its vicinity, in the Northeastern part of Kirin Province, Manchuria’ F-H Chen, from the Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, January 1 1934; annotated to Dr. R.E. Cooper (in REC’s handwriting?)
• ‘A preliminary study of the Compositae in Hopei Province’, Feng-Hwai Chen, from the Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, May 1 1934
• ‘Enumeration of Primula collected by Mr T.T. Yu from Northwestern Yunnan, F.H. Chen, from the Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, March 1939; annotated ‘To Prof. W.W. Smith with the author’s compliments Fenghwai Chen, May 30/40’
• ‘A study of Primula seeds with reference to the criteria of sections’, Feng-Hwai Chen, from the Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, July 1940
• ‘An Enumeration of Aconitum collected by T.T. Yu from N.W. Yunnan’, Feng-Hwai Chen & Ying Liu, from the Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, June 1941; annotated with ‘To Mr W.E. Evans’

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.

This collection features:

• correspondence
• notebooks
• photographs (prints & negatives)
• Microscopic Slides
• fern collections
• reprints
• miscellaneous papers

Rita Calder was a mounter in the Herbarium and documented her mounting numbers in notebooks before the advent of an electronic Mounting Backlog spreadsheet now held on SharePoint. LIVE Mounting Backlog Spreadsheet.xlsx
These notebooks are handwritten and document the year and date collections were submitted for mounting and then when they were completed (1983 – 2008). From 2007 the new mounter Kate Eden also completed entries, obvious by a change in handwriting. They also make references to specimens which were repaired and which member of staff submitted them.
There appear to be two sets of books. The ones with In/Out columns are specimens mounted in any given month/year. The other books are a record of specimens coming into the Mounting Room in any given year. They record the country of origin and the donor or member of RBGE staff who submitted them. They could be viewed in the context of the Incoming Specimen/Donation books already held in the Archive.

7 folders of illustratons, along with Garven's list of the illustrations, a copy of Garven's portrait (held at Glasgow University) and a copy of Garven's obituary from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

A candlestick holder and mirror frame crafted from trial pieces produced when creating the rhododendron gate for the Inverleith East Gate entrance to RBGE

Series of notebooks recording the flowering times (phenology) of certain plants grown at RBGE

Literature Card Index showing references to plants found in V.C. 83, and box of around 306 35mm slides of British plants taken by Beattie.