'Collection first: received from Mr George Don at Sierra Leone'
Information
Title
'Collection first: received from Mr George Don at Sierra Leone'
Record type
Archive
Original Reference
RHS/Col/2/3/8
Date
c.1822
Scope & content
List of specimens sent by George Don to England, divided into three parts: fruits, seeds and plants. Signed by John Lindley
Fruits preserved in spirits, including butter and tallow tree, cherries 'of the natives', rough-skinned and sugar plums, 'the peach of the inhabitants, a fine fleshy fruit of which no notice is taken by Afzelius, unless it be what he calls the country fig', 'a fruit described as remarkably good & called sweet picimmon [pishamin], and several others of less importance'
Seeds, including most of the fruits in spirit and 'various ornamental plants of which specimens are included in a package not yet arrived'. The 'most remarkable' seeds Combretum and a sort of Arum, 'which is applied to culinary purposes as greens are in England'
Plants ('of this part of the collection many are dead on their arrival, but about 20 kinds are in a living state, although by no means in good condition'), including 'one plant without a label but which there is reason to believe the butter and tallow tree', 'what Mr Don considers Amomum afzelii', a species of Costus, 'a remarkably fine fern' and many scitaminie 'of which no opinion can be formed in their present state from the chief part of this portion of the collection' [here the list includes 3 more plants]