Special collections
- Historical collections
Various parts of the collections are of special historical interest and are kept separate. Notable historical collections include the following herbaria.
• A 16th century Italian herbarium bearing the title En Tibi Perpetuis Ridentum Floribus Hortum. It dates c. 1545 and is one of the oldest herbaria still extant.
• The Rauwolf herbaria, made by the Augsburg physician Leonhart Rauwolf (1535-1596). It consists of four volumes, three quarto and one folio. The folio volume formed the base of Gronovius Flora orientalis, 1755.
• The botanical legacy of Hieronymus van Beverningk (1614—1690). He was an influential Dutch statesman. In 1673 he became Curator of the Leiden University. During the last years of his life he took up interest in botany and cultivated rare plants at his estate Lockhorst (Oud-Teylingen) near Warmond. It includes a number of 17th century herbaria i.e. some made by Jacob Breyne and Paul Hermann , and a Paolo Boccone herbarium. One of the Hermann herbaria contained Surinam plants, and was given to the Utrecht herbarium in 1939.
• The herbaria of Adriaan van Royen (1704—1779) and his nephew David van Royen (1727—1799), both director of the Leiden botanical garden in the 18th century. Of great importance for the typification of Linnean species.
• The Gaymans herbaria. Antonius Gaymans (c. 1630—1680) was born in Velp near Arnhem and settled as an apothecary in Leiden in 1656 until his death in 1680. Gaymans made at least two different herbarium collections. The first he composed around 1661. It is now kept at the Herbarium of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasneving, Dublin (DBN). The second collection is kept at the Leiden branch of the NHN, and is composed of three leather-bound folio volumes. The first volume bears the title Herbarius vivus diversarum plantarum collectarum anno 1669 aut. Antonio Gaeymans. The second volume is dated 1671. The third volume is not dated but will have been started after the closure of the second volume. In total these three volumes contain 1772 specimens.
• The herbarium of David de Gorter (1717-1783), author of the first Dutch Flora. He studied at Harderwijk with his father Johannes de Gorter (1689—1762) and graduated in medicine in 1734. When Linnaeus came to Harderwijk in 1735 to graduate with J. de Gorter, a friendship sprang up between David de Gorter and Linnaeus. Together they made collecting trips around Harderwijk.
• The herbarium of Nicolaas Meerburg (1734—1814), head gardener at the Leiden botanical garden. Here he worked with three different directors, i.e. Adriaan and David van Royen, and Sebald Justinus Brugmans (1763—1819).
• The fungi herbarium of Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1761-1836). He was born in South Africa. When he was 12 years old he went to Germany, from 1800 until his death he lived in Paris. He is generally regarded as the “Father of Systematic Mycology”. His reputation rests mainly on the following works: Observationes Mycologicae (1795—1799); Tentamen dispositionis methodicae fungorum in classes, ordines, generae et familias (1797); Synopsis methodicae fungorum (1801), and the unfinished Mycologia Europaea (1822—1828). These formed the framework on which Fries and later systematists based their classifications.
• One of the most important collections of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands is undoubtedly the Japanese collections made by P.F. Siebold (1797-1866) and his successors, and is mainly collected in a period when Japan was closed to all western nations except the Netherlands. Together with the German botanist J.G. Zuccarini (1797—1848) he described many new genera and species based on his herbarium collections (Siebold & Zuccarini, 1843; 1845; 1846). In 1835 he started the publication of the Flora Japonica. After the death of Zuccarini in 1848 this project came to a halt, but after Siebold died in 1866, Miquel published some new parts.
Many other old herbaria are present. Because of this wealth of historical herbaria the NHN is one of the very few institutes where the development of the herbarium as a scientific instrument, from the very beginnings till now, can be studied.
Specimens from the historical collections are not sent on loan.
- Economic botany collection
The Economic Botany Collection resulted from combining collections of the former laboratory for technical botany of the Technical University Delft (TUD), and the in 1989 acquired collections assembled by the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam (KIT). The variety of objects ranges from artefacts made from plants, to raw plant materials. Uses range from food, medicine and utensils, to gums and resins to dyes and fibres.
- Plant fossils
A small (600 specimens) collection of mainly carboniferous fossils, which is used for teaching purposes.
- Plant galls
A collection of plants with abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues caused by gall inducing organisms (12,000 specimens). Galls can be caused by various parasites, from fungi and bacteria, to insects and mites. Important are the collections made by W.M. Docters van Leeuwen, the author of a book on Dutch galls.
