Herbaria

Madeiran herbaria are not rare in Europe, owing to the large number of botanical expeditions carried out here in the 18th and 19th centuries, chiefly by foreign naturalists. The British Museum and Kew Gardens hold the collections of Richard Thomas Lowe. The first of these institutions also possesses the herbaria of Joseph Banks, Dr Daniel Solander, Francis Masson and Downe, and the second holds the valuable herbarium of our late fellow countryman João Maria Moniz and part of that of Dr Carlos Lemann. Cambridge University has numerous specimens collected in Madeira by the latter naturalist, and Kew Gardens, already mentioned, has many specimens from the collections of the French botanist Gilbert Mandon, who travelled through the archipelago in 1865 and 1866.

It may be supposed that the Madeiran herbarium that belonged to Dr Oswald Heer is in the Zurich Botanical Garden, since many of his botanical collections were deposited there. Forster’s herbarium is presumably at the University of Kiel or in the Natural History Museum in Paris, where, according to Alphonse De Candolle, the botanical collections obtained on James Cook’s second voyage round the world were sent.

The herbaria of Franqueville and Cosson in France, those of Boissier, Candolle and Delessert in Switzerland, and that of the Palatine Museum in Vienna contain many specimens of Madeiran plants collected by Mandon, and the Botanical Museum in Florence holds many of the collections that the English botanist Webb assembled on this island in 1828. The herbaria of M. Gandoger and O. Debeaux in France contain rich collections from this island, donated by one of the authors of this Elucidário. At the universities of Coimbra, Lisbon and Porto numerous dried plants from our region can be seen, sent by the same collector, who also sent complete collections of the Madeiran Ranunculaceae, Onagraceae and Cyperaceae to the former International Academy of Botanical Geography of Le Mans, and collections of the native ferns to the same Academy and to Prince Bonaparte, the distinguished French pteridologist.

We do not know what became of the collections of Holl, Lippold, Schacht and Captain Norman. As for those of Bornmüller, Trelease and Dr Vahl, everything suggests that they remain in the hands of those who assembled them. Many of the plants collected in Madeira by Nathaniel Mason are in the Palatine Museum mentioned above, while the collections of the distinguished Portuguese botanist the Baron of Castelo de Paiva were donated by him to the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, and passed from there to the Faculty of Sciences of the same city.

James Yate Johnson assembled a small herbarium of Madeiran plants, which is held in the Funchal Seminary (Seminário do Funchal) Museum. Although fairly incomplete, this collection is notable for containing most of the island’s rare species. The last time we saw it (1921) it was well preserved, thanks to the care taken to expose it from time to time to carbon disulphide vapour.

Thanks to the plant-collecting of the young Madeiran botanist José Gonçalves da Costa, a 3rd-year theology student at the Episcopal Seminary of Funchal (Seminário Episcopal do Funchal), the herbarium of that seminary is today (1921) one of the richest known in plants of the Madeira archipelago. Mr Costa has collected chiefly in Funchal, Porto Moniz, Achadas da Cruz, Ribeira da Janela and Porto Santo, and his work has yielded material of great value, including some new species and varieties.

We have so far referred to collections of Phanerogams and Vascular Cryptogams. As for collections of Cellular Cryptogams, the most valuable assembled to date are, we believe, those of Kny, Johnson, Mandon, Winter, Miss Armitage, Castelo de Paiva, Bornmüller and Father J. Barreto: the first five of Madeiran mosses and the rest of Madeiran lichens. Some years ago the Revd Father Jaime Barreto made abundant collections of Madeiran fungi, while Dr Liebetruth, Captain Albertis, the Revd Ernst Schmitz and Dr Gain collected the marine algae of the archipelago. Dr Lindman collected the freshwater algae of Madeira, as did one of the authors of this Elucidário; his specimens were identified for the most part by the Revds Zimmermann, a Swiss botanist, and Schodduyn, a French botanist.

Besides Johnson’s herbarium, already mentioned, the Funchal Seminary Museum holds the excellent collection of mosses that belonged to the same botanist, the lichen and fungus collections of the Revd Father Jaime Barreto and the marine algae collections of the Revd Father Ernst Schmitz. It also contains a notebook of lichens gathered on this island many years ago by the late Madeiran naturalist João Maria Moniz, as well as other material of lesser value.

The botanical collections in the seminary (Seminário) are the only ones that can guide the foreign naturalist visiting Madeira in the study of the native flora, for neither the government nor the administrative bodies have yet thought of creating a regional museum to house the products of the three kingdoms of nature, which are extremely varied and interesting in many parts of the archipelago. See Natural history cabinet and Museums.