Leiden Collection Research Articles

Mediterranean specimens of the Prussian Botanist Jacob Breyne (1637–1697) in the Van Royen Herbarium, Leiden, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT Directors of the Leiden botanic garden Adriaan van Royen (1704–1779) and his nephew David van Royen (1727–1799) accumulated a large number of plant specimens in their herbarium collection. The “Van Royen herbarium” at Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Leiden, the Netherlands) holds 89 specimens currently attributed to the Prussian botanist Jacob Breyne (1637–1697). The identity, provenance and history of these Breyne specimens were never studied, although this collection may contain specimens missing from two book herbaria by Breyne (dated 1659 and 1673). Here, we reveal the species represented by the Breyne specimens in the Van Royen collection, as well as their origin and the information contained on their labels. A total of 75 species were identified in Breyne’s specimens, mostly collected in the surroundings of Montpellier (south-eastern France). Of the 89 specimens attributed to Breyne, 54 contain labels in his own handwriting, confirming they were collected (or at least owned) by him. The specimens are not derived from Breyne’s book herbaria also kept in the Leiden collection, as these contain mostly Polish plants. Breyne most likely did not collect these specimens himself, but received them from one or several of his correspondents with ties to Montpellier. It is not known how Breyne’s specimens ended up in the Van Royen herbarium (possibly through his son Johann Philipp), but they provide an insight in the flora of Mediterranean France in the 17th century, and reflect changes in nomenclature and the state of botanical science at that time.

Teuku Panglima Polem’s Purse

AbstractThe Dutch colonial wars in Southeast Asia had manuscripts as by-products. The subject of the present article is the content of the purse of Teuku Panglima Polem (d. 1940), an Acehnese leader during the final episode of the colonial war that the Dutch waged in Aceh, a staunch Muslim country in the Northern part of Sumatra. The captured purse was part of war booty in 1899. It contained a number of short Islamic texts, written in anyone of the three languages that at the time were in current use in Aceh: Acehnese, Malay and Arabic. It is, in fact, a small portable library. A full description of the purse’s contents is given and an attempt is made to offer an analysis of the texts that Panglima Polem carried on his person. Such documents were often considered as subversive by the colonial authorities. In an appendix, the author identifies a considerable number Islamic manuscripts in the Leiden collection with similar provenances.

Paolo Boccone and the visual communication of pre-Linnean botany. A comparison between his Leiden herbarium, Paris autoprint and published Icones (1674)

This article addresses the development of visual practices in early modern Botany by focusing on the diverse strategies of graphic representation of plant species. Naturalis Biodiversity Center holds a historic herbarium of 169 sheets with specimens of Mediterranean plants collected by the Sicilian Botanist Paolo Boccone (1633–1704). Part of Boccone's dried specimens served as model for the etchings published in his Icones et descriptiones rariorum plantarum (1674) and part of them were used as matrix for at least one album of botanical autoprints kept in Paris. The exceptional survival of the three collections: the original dried specimens, their autoprint impressions and the etched illustrations of the book, offers a unique insight in the material and intellectual issues addressed in the process of visual representation of plants in early modern Botany. Here we present the first scientific comparison of these three valuable 17th century botanical collections. Visual comparison revealed that the Leiden collection provided 64 specimens to Icones, while 44 specimens show a perfect matching with the autoprint impressions. In nine cases the Leiden specimens appear both in the autoprints and in the Icones, thus showing the complete process of visual translation of the plant preliminary to its wider circulation in the scientific community.

Insights from Technical Analysis on a Group of Paintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection

Insights from Technical Analysis on a Group of Paintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection

On the nomenclature of the Pale Blue Flycatcher Cyornis unicolor infuscatus E. Hartert, 1902 (Aves: Muscicapidae) with lectotype designation for Cyornis cyanopolia Blyth, 1870

In autumn 1869, Edward Blyth (1810–1875) visited the bird collection of the Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden (RMNH, now: Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis, NCB, Leiden) to check its holdings of birds from India, and he then published his findings accompanied by taxonomic notes in the journal Ibis (Blyth 1870: 157–176). One of the taxa mentioned was a muscicapid flycatcher of which he had examined specimens collected on Sumatra, Java and Borneo. The reason Blyth listed them in this publication was that, to his eye, they appeared similar to birds he already knew and had described under the name Cyornis unicolor Blyth, 1843, from Sikkim. However, instead of applying this name in his discussion of these birds in the Leiden collection, presumably because of some uncertainty he retained MS names mentioned on their museum labels, listing them as “Cyornis cyanopolia (Boie)” and “Muscicapa infuscata (Müller)” (Blyth 1870). In doing so he laid the ground for a long-sustained dispute over name availability, redoubled by the discovery of Finsch (1901) that more than one taxon was involved. Aspects of this situation have been summarized recently by Dickinson et al. (2002), Mees (2004) and LeCroy (2008).

Unroofed coronary sinus and coronary sinus orifice atresia: Implications for management of complex congenital heart disease

The aim of this study was to assess the morphology of the coronary sinus, its drainage and associated cardiac malformations when there is either complete unroofing of the coronary sinus or atresia of its connection to the right atrium. As more children with complex cardiac anomalies are accepted for primary surgical repair or palliation with cavopulmonary anastomoses, a knowledge of coronary sinus and systemic venous anomalies is important if coronary venous return is to be preserved and residual shunts avoided. Twenty-six heart-lung specimens without a coronary sinus draining to the right atrium were identified from the Leiden collection of congenital heart malformations. These were classified into specimens with an unroofed coronary sinus and those with atresia of the coronary sinus orifice. Attention was paid to the associated cardiac malformations. In 14 (54%; confidence limits [CL] 35%, 73%) of 26 specimens, there was an unroofed coronary sinus, associated with persistence of the left superior caval vein. An inferoposterior location of an atrial septal defect was detected in 2 (14%; CL -4%, 33%) of 14. Atrial appendage anomalies were seen in 13 (93%; CL 79%, 106%) of 14 specimens, exemplified by both right and left isomerism. These were frequently associated with an atrioventricular septal defect (12 [86%; CL 67%, 104%] of 14). An atretic coronary sinus orifice was seen in 12 (46%; CL 27%, 65%) of 26. Atrial appendage anomalies (2 [17%; CL -4%, 38%] of 12) were rare in these cases. The drainage was then by way of a left superior caval vein or, in its absence, a coronary sinus to left atrial window. Ventricular hypoplasia was seen in both categories of coronary sinus abnormalities. Important ventricular hypoplasia was seen in 12 cases (46%; CL 27%, 65%). These findings emphasize the need to study coronary sinus drainage before procedures such as ligation or transcatheter coil embolization of a left superior caval vein, venous redirection or closure of a dorsal atrial septal defect are contemplated. These procedures might inadvertently lead to impairment of coronary venous return or persistence of an intracardiac shunt.