Edward Morgan (c.1619–c.1689) and his hortus siccus: an early record of Welsh plants

Abstract

Edward Morgan, gardener at the Westminster Physic Garden probably from about 1650 until 1678, compiled a hortus siccus in three large volumes, which are now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Morgan evidently continued to add specimens to the hortus siccus when he retired from Westminster and returned to his native Wales. Remarkably, on the back of a letter to his father, also in the Bodleian Library, Edward Lhwyd listed “plants found in north wales” with page numbers relating to specimens in the three “tomes” of the hortus siccus, presumably as an aide-memoire for his own use. These lists are clearly abbreviated versions of lists made by Morgan himself, of which only that relating to the first volume has survived, but from it and other evidence it has proved possible to detect the specimens in the hortus siccus that were certainly or very probably collected in North Wales. Unfortunately the specimens are not localized or dated, but, although they constitute early records for Wales, almost all of the species represented had already been recorded in Britain and/or Ireland.