From the early 1680s until his death in 1753, London physician Hans Sloane amassed a vast collection of objects, among which were the 121,000 plant specimens that formed his herbarium. Though most have been re-bound, and some other interventions have occurred, the plant collection is still largely organised as it was in 1753. It comprises 337 numbered horti sicci (‘dried gardens’), bound into 265 volumes. A small proportion were gathered by Sloane himself, either in and around London or in France in the early 1680s, or on his voyage to Jamaica from 1687 to 1688. However, the majority of the collection was either bought by, or bequeathed or given to Sloane by other collectors, and over 320 named individuals are represented in this herbarium. While a large proportion of the collection is European, it also includes tens of thousands of specimens from much further afield. Their geographical distribution largely reflects British trading and colonial interests, but also includes plants from parts of the Portuguese and Spanish empires, as well as from Japan and China.

This dataset provides high-level metadata for the collection. At its core is a survey of the entire herbarium, which records key information for each folio. This includes the number of specimens, illustrations or ‘manuscripts’ present, together with an indication of the presence/absence of: specimen labels; cross references to Sloane’s annotated copy of John Ray’s Historia Plantarum; common/local names in any language; usage information; names of people or places; and any modern (binomial) determinations. To this have been added the people and places identified for any given folio in The Sloane Herbarium (1958), edited by James Dandy, together with some corrections and additions.

Dandy (1958) The Sloane Herbarium has been digitised and can be accessed on Biodiversity Heritage Library: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/137366

For a description of the data contained in the dataset, please read the Data Description and Change Log: https://shorturl.at/8h0Wg

This work was supported by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council Towards a National Collection Programme (Grant AH/W003457/1) and a doctoral studentship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded London Arts and Humanities Programme Doctoral Training Partnership (Grant AH/R012679/1).