- Bertha Chandler's thesis, 1913, "The Theory and Practice of Vegetative Propagation in the Flowering Plants", illustrated by Bertha's drawings and photographs, and photographs by Robert Moyes Adam.
- 4 notebooks; Botany, May 1905 - Bertha's University of Edinburgh lecture notes; Practical Botany sketch book, Winter 1907-08, drawings and notes; Hardy Shrubs, drawings, notes and literature references, plus numerous enclosure, including partial notes for a talk on plant luminescence; and 'Where is it?' - an indexed book containing an alphabetical list of plants experimented with for Callus formation and Propagation with numerical list at end of book.
- Reprint - Utricularia emarginata by Chandler, Annals of Botany, vol. XXIV, No., XCV, July 1910, owned by Chandler.
- 7 copies of Chandler's biography for the RBGE Guild journal.
1 folder with information on an expeditions to the Andes (1925/1926/1927)
Comber, Harold FrederickBook of newspaper cuttings and notes relative to the H.M.S Challenger (1873-76)
Box of Challenger photographs
‘The Challenger Expedition, 1872-1876: A Visual Index’ by Eileen V. Brunton, 2nd Ed, The Library, The Natural History Museum, London (2004)
Monograph ‘Notice of a Crab Apple Tree of Unusual Size at Kelloe, Berwickshire’
Christison, Sir Robert11 page printed report with illustration of the engraved plan for the proposed experimental garden to be established at Inverleith (1825)
Royal Caledonian Horticultural SocietyNewspaper 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).
1 newspaper cutting with Notice of the death of Leslie John (Jack) Clendinnen on 29 January 1954 & 1 colour photograph of "Jack" Clendinnen in Garden setting
Clendinnen, Leslie John15 page Paper titled 'Sequoia' (1896) with additional 4 pages of measurement tables & diagram of annual rings of various specimens.
Memo on Sequoia paper D. Christison;
Memo 18 June 1903 by H. Hastings to the Regius Keeper regarding return of 'Sequoia' portfolio to Mr. Clayton at Bradford
1 folder of project publication and photograph by Corinne McDonough.
Corinne was a 4th year photography student at the Edinburgh College of Art in 2014 and involved in a project looking at the need for libraries, human interactions with objects and behind the scenes views. She visited RBGE on the 20th March 2014 to take photographs, 3 of which ended up in the project publication, Ordo Librorum. This publication (1), one of the photographs (2) and two publicity cards (3) are in this small collection.
3 two sided handwritten pages of monograph ‘On the Sexuality of Algae’ by Dr. Ferdinand Cohn of Breslau dated (1855)
Cohn, Dr Ferdinand Julius