Dr. Munch's Flora Europaea?

[Robert Mill]

Dear Dr Macklin

This is probably the herbarium, or a set from it, of Christian
Muench (that's meant to be Munch with an umlaut accent on the
u), or (given the few dates you have found) possibly a descendant
of his. Christian Muench's European specimens are in Basel
(BAS), and we at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh have some
Swiss material collected by C. Muench in 1837-43 (earlier than the
dates on your specimens, which is why I'm suggesting it _could_
be a descendant; his dates are not given in "Index Herbariorum").
Perhaps if there's someone on this list in BAS, they may be able
to help re field books etc?

Many European herbarium specimens of the 1850s had much less
information on their labels than we now include on them, and what
you indicate is on the labels of your Muench collection is pretty
typical of the period, so you may not be able to get much more
information than you have already have.

Best wishes
Robert Mill

> Colleagues,
>
> We have an interesting collection of plants (Fungi, Algae, Bryophytes,
> Lycopods, Pteridos, Gymnos and Angios) contained in 50 attractive cedar
> boxes that are labeled "Flora Europaea - Dr. Munch's Herbarium" The
> specimens are mounted on smaller than standard herbarium sheets and have
> labels with generally poor information. The labels are printed with the
> information, "Dr. C.H. Munch, Bale, Switzerland" and the few dates we
> find indicate that the plants were collected between 1850 and 1900. The
> locality data typically states only the country of origin and sometimes
> a city, which span most of western and eastern Europe. Does anyone have
> knowledge of such a herbarium or Dr. Munch. We are interested primarily
> in locating more data on the specimens such as from a journal or field
> notes. Without further information the value of such a collection for
> scientific study is limited.
>



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      (Dr) ROBERT R MILL
      Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
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      (Part of THE NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS OF SCOTLAND)
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