John Lawson collected natural history specimens from the colony of Carolina for James Petiver, a London apothecary. Hans Sloane (1660-1753) acquired Petiver's plant collections upon the latter's death in 1718. Sloane's plant collections consists of 337 volumes, described as "the most extensive single series of botanical collections made in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries."
The Sloane Herbarium consists of linen paper sheets to which dried plants have been affixed with paste and strips of paper. The bound volumes are called Horti Sicci (HS), Latin for dried plants. The location of a particular plant can be identified by reference to "book number and page number within that book." Latin Family names are listed first with the common Family names in parentheses.
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