Letter 3287

Richardson viewed Sloane’s cabinet of curiosities and admits he ‘could have spent a month’ looking over the collection. On his way home, ‘four miles South of Grantham’, Richardson happened upon a ‘great plenty [of] Stashys Fuchey [?]’. There are many plants missing in the Chelsea Physic Garden, especially from Wales and northern Britain. He is going to inform Mr Pieller of the plants he thinks the garden should have. Richardson asks Sloane to put him in the service of Dr Scheuchzer and inform him that he has found three subscribers for Kaempfer’s History of Japan. Richardson thanks Sloane for sending books. He includes a list of books he wants to purchase for his library. Richardson was a physician and botanist who traveled widely in England, Wales, and Scotland in search of rare specimens. He corresponded and exchanged plants with many well-known botanists and naturalists (W. P. Courtney, Richardson, Richard (16631741), rev. Peter Davis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23576, accessed 31 May 2011]).