Ref NoMS/4
TitleFaciculus Plantarum Hiberniae - Patrick Browne
AdminHistoryPatrick Browne (c.1720-1790) was born in Woodstock, County Mayo, and educated locally before being sent to live with relatives on Antigua in 1737. He stayed for a year before returning to Europe due to health reasons, where he then studied medicine. He graduated from the University of Rheims in 1742 before matriculating but not graduating from the University of Leiden. Browne spent three years as a doctor in St Thomas's Hospital in London before returning in 1746 to the West Indies, where he practiced as a physician in Kingston, Jamaica. He spent any spare time that he had studying the natural history of the island. He corresponded with the botanist Carl Linnaeus, among whose papers were found fragments of articles on venereal diseases and yaws by Browne. Browne retired to Rushbrook, near Claremorris, Co. Mayo in [1770] and died in 1790.

His major work, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica (1756), illustrated by the botanic artist Georg Dionysius Ehret, contains new names for 104 genera and was noteworthy because it used Linnaeus' sexual system.

Browne began compiling an Irish Flora soon after he returned to Ireland in 1770. It is thought that he used the following works in his research: 'Synopsis stirpium Hibernicarum' (1726) by Caleb Threlkeld, 'Botanalogia universalis Hibernica, or a universal Irish herbal' (1744) by John Keogh, and 'An essay towards a natural history of the county of Dublin' (1772) by John Rutty. He correspondend with Sir Joseph Banks about [it is thought] the manuscript, and Banks believed that it would be good for furthering the study of science in Ireland.

See Flowers of Mayo, Dr. Patrick Browne's Fasciculus plantarum Hiberniae 1788 ed. E. Charles Nelson and W. Walsh (1995) for further information on the life and work of Browne.
DescriptionHandwritten manuscript entitled 'Faciculus [Fasciculus] Plantarum Hiberniae, or a catalogue of such plants as ye [the] Author observed chiefly in ye [the] County's of Mayo and Galway; to which he has adid [added] a few from Smith's county, Rutty's [Dr John Rutty] county of Dublin & notes upon Threlkeld, & the County of Down; and one or two from [John] Keogh.'

Includes a preface dated 30 August 1788 which highlights the many uses of plants including for health, the table, commerce, and for pleasure. The last 2 pages have pencilled notes by A.B.Lambert who later gave the MS to J.E.Smith.
Date30 Aug 1788
LevelFile
Extent1 bound volume
LanguageEnglish
Latin
Related MaterialMS/3
AcquisitionIn 1790, A.B. Lambert visited Browne in Ireland and returned to London with a copy of Browne's 'Fasciculus plantarum Hiberniae', some of Browne's specimens and the new manuscript of plants in the Caribbean [A catalogue of the plants of Jamaica and other English sugar-colonies]. Following the death of Browne on 29 August 1790, A.B. Lambert presented the specimens to the Linnean Society (as recorded in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, 1790) and presented the manuscripts at a later date.
Creator NameBrowne, Patrick
Access_StatusOpen
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