John Clayton's Collection of Virginia Mosses

The original specimens of 22 of the 32 species of mosses collected by Clayton and reported by Gronovius in the second edition of Flora Virginica (1762) are extant and have been examined. Originally referred to by descriptive phrases, the species for which specimens exist are rereported under their current binomials. John Clayton came as a young man in 1720 or possibly 1715 froin England to Gloucester County, Virginia. He became clerk of the county court, a position which he held for the rest of his life. He early became interested in the local flora and collected seeds of plants of potential horticultural value for exchange with other naturalists in the colonies and with correspondents in England and on the Continent. The story of his life and botanical activities has recently been 1 HollinS College, Hollins College, Virginia. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.102 on Thu, 23 Jun 2016 06:53:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 106 THE BRYOLOGIST [Volume 68 given by the Berkeleys (1963) and their book is the source of the biographical information here. A botanical friend of Clayton's, Mark Catesby, introduced him by correspondence to Johannes Frederick Gronovius, a medical doctor of Leiden. Gronovius, aside from his practice, held public offices and was an avid naturalist. Clayton sent him many plants and Gronovius identified them with assistance from Linnaeus. Gronovius published his Flora Virginica based on these collections in 1739. Additional specimens sent over the subsequent years prompted him to prepare the enlarged revision of 1762. He published the revision under Linnean class and generic names but with brief Latin descriptions, not under binomials, although the first edition of Linnaeus' Species Plantarum had appeared in 1753. This is especially surprising since Gronovius was personally acquainted with Linnaeus and admired him as a botanist. Clayton's botanical interest went far beyond that of plants suitable for gardens to all the plants around him, an interest which he maintained all his life. Linnaeus studied most of the plants that were described in the 1739 edition of Flora Virginica and Species Plantarum includes many North America species based on Clayton's collections. The Berkeleys (1963) give evidence that Clayton crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia into Augusta County and also a suggestion that he may have made an extensive trip into Canada. Clayton was held in high esteem as a botanist in his own right. The Berkeleys (1963) point out, for example, that Linnaeus obtained membership for Clayton in the Swedish Academy of Sciences. They quote John Bartram as writing that this academy "has from its first institution been known for the great delicacy in choosing members of distinction and note." In addition to the flowering plants, Clayton's botanical interests included gymnosperms, pteridophytes, bryophytes, lichens, and agarics. Thirty-two mosses are reported in the 1762 edition of Flora Virginica, exactly double the number in the first edition. The aim of the present paper is to give the current binomials for the moss species for which specimens are extant. While in London during the summer of 1964, I had the opportunity of examining the Gronovian sheets of Clayton's mosses in the British Museum (Natural History) through the courtesy of A. H. Norkett, Curator of Cryptogamic Botany. Twenty-five sheets of Clayton's mtsses, representing 22 species, are still preserved. The species are reported here in the same sequence that Gronovius used in listing them on pages 168-172 in the 1762 edition of Flora Virginica. The binomials in capitals are my identifications. Dillenius' (or Clayton's) corresponding descriptive phrases in Latin are also given for these species. Clayton's specimens are numbered, and these same numbers and descriptive phrases were fortunately published by Gronovius, thus making the association of the specimens to the pubThis content downloaded from 157.55.39.102 on Thu, 23 Jun 2016 06:53:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1965] PATTERSON: CLAYTON S MOSSES 107 lished reports certain beyond doubt. A few sheets had binomials pencilled on them by one or more unidentified examiners but, as indicated below, some of the names are in error. All the specimens are small to minute and here and there one or more had apparently become detached and lost. There is no locality information on any of the sheets or in Flora Virginica. Gronovius made considerable effort to find what might be called synonymous descriptions from the literature. He failed to cite synonyms for eight species which, presumably, he considered new. Oddly enough, Dicranum scoparium falls in both categories. The easiest synonyms to identify in terms of modern nomenclature are the Dillenian ones since Druce and Vines (1907) revised that collection. Sometimes wide of the mark, Gronovius matches some of the Dillenian species accurately. His synonymy citations for mosses seems scholarly with Linnaeus' Flora Lapponica (1737) and Flora Suecica (1745) and Dillenius' Historia Muscorum (1741) referred to frequently. In addition, there are citations from Ray's Synopsis (1724), Vaillant's Botanicon Parisiense (1727), and from several other sources.