British Museum (Natural History) General Guide

by British Museum

Botanical Gallery.

The upper floor of the East wing is devoted to the Department of Botany.

The Collections of this Department consist of two portions, the one open to the public and consisting of specimens suitable for exhibition, and mainly intended to illustrate the various groups of the Vegetable Kingdom and the broad facts on which the natural system of the classification of plants is based; the other set apart for the use of persons engaged in the detailed scientific study of plants.

On the landing outside the gallery is a series of tree-sections representing some common British-grown trees, with sections and bark of the Cork-Oak (Quercus suber), and large sections of the White Fir and Douglas Pine from British Columbia. The Douglas Pine was cut down in 1885 when 533 years old; its age is indicated by the annual rings seen in transverse section of the wood, and a record of events has been painted on the surface. A collection of plant-abnormalities is also shown.

System of Classification.

The system of classification followed in the exhibition-cases in the public gallery is a modification of one widely used on the Continent and in America. In the first bay on the left-hand side an attempt has been made to illustrate, by means of books dealing with the subject, the history and development of modern systems of classification. There is a Guide[26] to this exhibition. The series of specimens (starting on the north, or left-hand, side of the gallery) begins with the simpler orders of Dicotyledonous Seed-plants, those in which petals are wanting in the flower or if present are free from each other, and passes on to the less simple orders with united petals. The orders are represented by dried or otherwise prepared specimens of the plants themselves, drawings, fruits, and prepared sections of the woods. Diagrams are employed to indicate the characters in the flowers on which the grouping is based. The use of the same colour for corresponding structures throughout the diagrams readily conveys to the eye the points of agreement or difference on which the classification rests. The geological history of each natural order is indicated on a table of strata, and its present distribution on the surface of the earth given on a small map of the world. Descriptive labels afford particular information respecting each specimen.

The Dicotyledonous Plants extend to the fifth case on the left side of the gallery, and are followed by the Monocotyledonous orders, which fill a portion of the last case on the same side, the two half-cases at the end of the gallery, and the first case returning towards the door. The Gymnosperms are placed in the next case. Then follow the Cryptogams, a case being devoted to the higher, vascular orders, and another to the cellular plants. The series closes with an interesting collection of models of the larger British Fungi, coloured and mounted in accordance with their natural habitats. A Catalogue of these models has been prepared.[27] In the table-case in the last bay is placed an illustrated collection of the British Mycetozoa, to which there is also a Guide.[28] A large chalk-like mass of Diatom-earth containing twelve billion Diatoms is placed in a case by itself near the entrance to the gallery. The table- and window-cases in the bays contain exhibitions of interest under the following heads: Insectivorous plants (at present in the Central Hall), Parasitic plants, Water-plants, Xerophytic plants, Epiphytic plants, Adaptations for Defence, Climbing plants, Fertilisation of flowers (also in the Hall), and Dispersal of seeds, a selection of British plants dried in sand and preserving their form and colour, and a series of Lichens from Chili. Attention may likewise be directed to a series of coloured drawings of British Plants. At the entrance of the gallery on the right is placed a camera to exhibit stereoscopic views of plants in their natural colours; and on the left is a model of a large fungus (Hydnum).

At the end of the gallery the larger specimens of Palms are set up against the screen dividing the gallery from the Herbarium; other Palms, Cycads, Tree-ferns, etc., are placed in the bays next the appropriate wall-cases. Suspended from the roof is a fine specimen of the “Wabo” Bamboo (Dendrocalamus) from Burma, 81 feet long; and on the floor of the gallery are specimens of the Vegetable Sheep (Raoulia) of New Zealand, a large aërial root of a Banyan, a Brazilian Tree-lily (Vellozia), a large Bamboo from Demerara, an Australian Grass-tree (Kingia), a Brazilian Palm (Acrocomia), a Sugar-cane, and a Japanese Cycad.

British Plants.

A collection of British Plants is exhibited in glazed frames fastened by hinges to uprights. The classification of the Flowering Plants and Ferns is that used in Bentham’s “Handbook of the British Flora,” and descriptions are attached as labels to each plant.[29] Three series of frames contain specimens of the British Flowering Plants and Ferns. The fourth frame is occupied with the Mosses and Stoneworts (Characeæ), and forms the beginning of the exhibition of Cellular Plants. The series is continued in the frames on the other side of the gallery containing the lower Fungi and coloured drawings of the larger Fungi; a small series of the larger kind of Fungi found near London is also shown. In the first bay to the right on entering are series of coloured drawings (natural size) of edible and poisonous fungi, and of field and cultivated mushrooms and poisonous or worthless species often mistaken for mushrooms. A Guide[30] to the latter series has been prepared. The British Lichens are arranged in a cabinet of shallow glass-topped drawers.