"From 1811 [Edward] Hobson took up the difficult study of mosses and liverworts, soon becoming expert in this area. By 1815 his discoveries led William Jackson Hooker to seek a meeting with him in Manchester. Impressed by Hobson's abilities in finding and distinguishing these little-studied cryptogamic plants, Hooker gave him a microscope and began a correspondence with him in order to receive further information and specimens. With Hooker's encouragement, Hobson produced and sold about twenty-five sets of A Collection of Specimens of British Mosses and Hepaticae, known as Musci Britannici (2 vols., 1818-22). These dried specimens were designed to accompany Hooker and Thomas Taylor's Muscologia Britannica: Containing the Mosses of Great Britain and Ireland (1818), in which they were advertised. In preparing Musci Britannici, Hobson exchanged letters and specimens with a wide range of naturalists from different social classes."--Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

On hearing of Hobson's death, Hooker wrote: "His publication of specimens of British mosses and hepaticae will be a lasting testimony to his correctness and deep research into their beautiful families; and in this country he has been the first to set the example of giving to the world volumes which are devoted to the illustration of entire genera of cryptogamous plants by beautifully preserved specimens themselves." See: Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 2nd series, VI, 297-324.

Comprises two portfolios containing 240 actual species of mosses, the larger ones mounted, the smaller enclosed in purpose made envelopes, each mounted to a sheet with printed identification slips. The title leaves and are also printed. An index survives for the 120 specimens included in volume 2. Presumably, an index was also originally issued with volume 1. Species are logically grouped according to genus. Printed tabs affixed to the tops of select leaves mark the first specimen in a given genus.

The printed identification sheet affixed to the foot of each sheet provides the Latin genus and species names. Below the names are references to the major works mentioned in the title: Muscologia Britannica, by William Jackson Hooker and Thomas Taylor (published 1818); English botany, by James Edward Smith and James Sowerby (published 1790-1814); British Jungermanniae, by William Jackson Hooker (published 1816); and Historia muscorum, by Johann Jakob Dillenius (published 1742).

Botanical specimens > Collection and preservation > Great Britain.

Botanical specimens > Great Britain > Specimens.

Liverworts > Collection and preservation > Great Britain.

Liverworts > Great Britain > Specimens.

Mosses > Great Britain > Specimens.

Mosses > Collection and preservation > Great Britain.

Herbaria.

Botanical illustrations.