Feedback request: Symphytum officinale (32275)

[kenbalkow]

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Specimen #359808

Taxon:	Boraginaceae: Symphytum officinale L. ("Common Comfrey")
Filed in taxon folder:	Boraginaceae: Symphytum officinale L. ("Common Comfrey")
Collected by:	Joseph Woods
Collection date:	8/1834
Locality:	Great Britain, VC21 Middlesex, River Lea, TQ38, bank [county inferred as Woods lived at Stoke Newington]
ex herb:	Mr Frederick Townsend
Institution:	South London Botanical Institute (SLBI)
Image:
collector's number:	7501
fruits/flowers:	mature flowers

Inferred details are marked.

Documented by kenbalkow on 2^nd March 2013.

Edit history

date	user	change
22/08/2013	oldnick	Deleted locality:
22/08/2013	oldnick	Added locality: GB VC21 River Lea, bank [county inferred as Woods lived at Stoke Newington]
22/08/2013	oldnick	Added collector: Joseph Woods
22/08/2013	oldnick	Added attribute collector's number: 7501

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User comments about this sheet

kenbalkow wrote

Location vague, banks of Lea. Too early for collector to be Townsend?

[David Price]

Several contemporary spmns have been ascribed to Joseph Woods.

[oldnick]

Label seems definitely Woods' and Middlesex can I believe be inferred as Woods lived at Stoke Newington then as did his parents, compare label with http://herbariaunited.org/specimen/312659/

[David Price]

Handwriting is not Woods's nor Townsend's and see http://herbariaunited.org/sheets/SLBI/38783.jpg

It is not Woods's style of date so it is unlikely to be a Woods label transcribed by another hand.

So although some similar contemporary collections have been ascribed to Woods I do not believe they are his.

[oldnick]

This is an interesting topic, I recall that until latterly, sheets with Woods' monogram were being edited as ex-herb Woods, rather than collected by Woods. I'm not knowledgeable about handwriting, and can't remember which sheets first made me think Woods had an early and a late style, if such things even exist. However the 'usual' Woods style is found throughout the duration of his collecting, though who knows when he actually may have written the labels we see now.

http://herbariaunited.org/specimen/323232/ 1824 shows an example dated 1862 of Joseph Woods giving a conventional date; the label is in Woods' more usual hand

http://herbariaunited.org/collector/19670/ shows an example dated 1862 of Joseph Woods giving a conventional date; the label is in Woods' more usual hand, though Woods' name has been added in F Townsend's hand.

http://herbariaunited.org/specimen/330071/ Isle of Wight 1844 may be in the 'other' hand, doesn't carry Woods' name at all, and may not be his.

http://herbariaunited.org/specimen/358302/ and http://herbariaunited.org/specimen/330771/ have labels dated 1831 from Stoke Newington which have perhaps an intermediate-looking hand, tending to angular.