Accession No

5186

Brief Description

vasculum, dating from no later than 1943

Origin

Maker

Class

natural history

Earliest Date

1850

Latest Date

1943

Inscription Date

Material

hide (leather); metal; paint

Dimensions

length 500mm; breadth 168mm; height 65mm

Special Collection

Provenance

Transferred from the Department of Plant Sciences; University of Cambridge; Cambridge; England on 29/10/1997. Returned to the Department of Plant Sciences by John Southy in 1997, via the Botanical Society of the British Isles. Borrowed from the Department of Plant Sciences by John Southy in 1943.

Inscription

J. F. S. (Scratched lightly on vasculum door)

Description Notes

Vasculum with leather carrying handle at one end, large hinged door on the side. The door is kept shut with a simple catch of thick metal wire.The exterior of the vasculum is painted black; there are many scratches in the paint. The interior may have been coated with a metallic (zinc?) paint, which is now flaking; there is some rust discolouration. The leather handle is attached to two welded-on brackets at the end of the vasculum; there is wear at the stitched joins, so that one end of the handle has broken. There is another bracket, perpendicular to these two; a matching one at the opposite end of the vasculum has broken off. Two other brackets are welded to one of the narrow sides of the object.

Condition fair; complete.

References

Events

Description
This vasculum would have been used by botanists to collect plants as it would have protected them until they could be processed. The initials inscribed on the lid are probably John Southy’s, who returned the vasculum to the Department of Plant Sciences in 1997 after borrowing it in 1943. Henry Collins, who collected the mosses in the book below, would have probably used a vasculum similar to this one.

Label written by Jack Rajack, Work Experience Student
08/06/2017
Created by: Rosanna Evans on 08/06/2017

FM:42137