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Plant Taxonomy: Archives & Special Collections

Subjects: Plant Taxonomy

Digital Archives of Special Collections at the Sherardian Library

The Sherardian Library contains many rare books, manuscripts and botanical artworks. Many of these collections have been digitized and are available to view online. These collections may be accessed through the following links:

Flora and Fauna Graeca

Sibthorp and Smith's Flora Graeca (1806-1840), illustrated by Ferdinand Bauer, comprises ten volumes that document the flora of the Mediterranean, based on the studies of John Sibthorp, Sherardian Professor of Botany at the university from 1784 until his death in 1796. The volumes are accompanied by illustrations executed by Austrian botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer, who joined Sibthorp on his Mediterranean expeditions.

A project in the mid-2000s digitized a full set of the Flora Graeca, together with Bauer's original drawings and watercolours, on which the published engravings were based, plus Bauer's "Fauna Graeca" drawings of animals of the Mediterranean, created for a never-published work, and a unique series of topographic "Mediterranean Scenes".

The complete volumes are:

 

Druce Archive

Work has been undertaken to provide a brief listing of the contents of the Druce Archive housed in the Sherardian Library of Plant Taxonomy. The Archive consists of around 160 boxes of correspondence, ephemera, photos and glass slides once owned by George Claridge Druce. This Excel spreadsheet (~2.57 MB) shows the results of this project, providing a searchable spreadsheet of the archive contents.

Note: For more information about the archive please contact the Sherardian Library.

Druce Birthday Book

Recent efforts have taken place to catalogue and digitise some of the contents of the Druce archive. An Access database of items from the Druce Birthday Book has been created. The Excel (~96.9 KB) summary table here provides an index of the individual names and documents that occur in the Birthday Book.

Note: Please contact the Sherardian Library if you have queries about items which appear in the summary table.

Image from the Flora Graeca

Related Archives

Search the Bodleian Libraries' Scientific Manuscript Collections

See the Special Collections Department Website for information on finding special collections material at the Bodleian Library.

For information on the scientific manuscript collections at the Bodleian, covering natural history and including the papers of contemporary scientists see: https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/early-sc/scientific

Search the Bodleian's Archives: https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Need Help?

For plant taxonomy subject enquiries please contact Sophie Wilcox:

sophie.wilcox@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

For other subject enquiries and for general information about Oxford's science libraries please check the Science Libraries LibGuide.