Archived Online Exhibit

Introduction

Ravenel was also, throughout his life, a serious collector of vascular plants, and his personal herbarium, with over 6,500 individual plant specimens, remains of great research significance, especially for current understanding of the flora of the southeastern United States.   Ravenel’s Private collection of vascular plants, which was housed for many years at Converse College in Spartanburg, is now located in the University of South Carolina’s Department of Biological Sciences, as the H. W. Ravenel Collection of Converse College, within USC’s A. C. Moore Herbarium.   We were especially pleased to have several colleagues from Converse with us at the exhibition opening, including Vice-President Jeffrey H. Barker, Prof. Joe Ann Lever, Prof. Robert Powell, and Prof. Douglas Jensen.  We are grateful also for the support and interest of Prof. Nelson’s emeritus colleagues at USC, Prof. John H. Herr and Prof. David Rembert; of Prof. Harry Shealy of USC-Aiken; and of members of the Ravenel family.

The current exhibition brings together a wide-ranging selection of the plant specimens from that collection, together with manuscript and other items from the Ravenel papers in the South Caroliniana Library, and selected botanical books from Thomas Cooper Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections.  The contemporary photographs in the upright cases are reproduced from Ravenel’s own album in South Caroliniana.  The exhibition has been curated by John Nelson (Department of Biological Sciences), in collaboration with Patrick Scott (Rare Books & Special Collections), and with Henry Fulmer and Beth Bilderback (South Caroliniana Library, manuscripts and the photographic materials).

Introduction to the Botanical Collection

The third (red) arrow on the overlay indicates Society Hill, the South Carolina home of Ravenel’s friend and correspondent Moses Curtis, who supplied him with specimens from that area of the state.  

 
The Social Basis of South Carolina Botany

Ravenel bridged the transition in South Carolina botany from the informed gentlemen-amateurs to professional science.  The subscription list for this volume shows the range of prominent South Carolinians interested in botany in the early nineteenth century.  Nonetheless, Shecut, a Charleston physician, lost $1800 on publishing seven numbers of this Flora.

During Ravenel’s years as a student at South Carolina College (1829-1832), the College library already had significant holdings of books about botany.  The library catalogue published in 1826 was arranged by subject and indicates the library’s strength in this field. 

 
Botanical Illustration in South Carolina, I: The state flower
Unknown artist, c. 1765.
“The Humming Bird of South-Carolina and Yellow Jesemin.”
Current name: Gelsemium sempervirens (L.) J. Saint-Hilaire; “Yellow Jessamine.”
From the collection presented by Mrs. William Carroll Brown, Belton, S.C.

This original sketch comes from the earliest surviving sizeable collection of natural history watercolors done in the United States.  This is a mid18th century album of 32 paintings from South Carolina and east Florida, depicting both plants and birds.  The album was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. William Carroll Brown in 1952, and donated to Thomas Cooper Library by Mrs. Brown in 1991.  At various times the sketches have been attributed to Mark Catesby (16831749), William Bartram of Philadelphia (17391823), John Abbot (17491840), or (most recently) to the South Carolinian amateur artist John Laurens (17541782), son of Henry Laurens, who was in east Florida in the relevant years.

No matter their source, herbarium specimens of vascular plants are always made with the same, simple demands: living plants must be pressed with sufficient pressure to flatten them, and they must be dried quickly enough to avoid the effects of mold.  Modern plant collecting techniques differ very little from those used by Ravenel and his contemporaries.

This contemporary specimen of the same plant is from Spartanburg County, collected recently.  Modern herbarium specimens, and those at the A. C. Moore Herbarium, are mounted on acid-free, archival paper.  Generally, a printed label is attached (glued) to sheets.  (The star indicates that information from this specimen has been entered into the Herbarium's database.)  The plant materials on both of these sheets are hardly distinguishable as far as quality of preparation.  The recent specimen continues to feature the yellow color of the flower’s corolla; however, the colors of all a plant’s parts will eventually fade.   Transient features such as flower color, flower aroma, pollinators, plant stature, etc. are properly recorded on the label as observational data impossible to reproduce after the time of collection. 

Properly prepared specimens feature all the parts of the plant (as is practical).  Dried specimens of plants, in general, retain essentially all the morphological features necessary for systematic study, and thus very old specimens remain valuable.  Beyond outright measurements of the plant’s parts, many aspects of morphological study are available, including, among other techniques, investigations of stomatal patterns and density, epidermal features, trichome (hair) characteristics, and pollen features.   Herbarium specimens, depending on their condition and the taxon involved, may offer substantial sources of study involving anatomy, biochemistry, and even molecular characteristics, including DNA sequencing.