The dried plant specimens painstakingly acquired by the London apothecary James Petiver (ca 1663–1718) from around the world constitute a substantial, but underappreciated, component of the vast herbarium of Sir Hans Sloane, now housed at London's Natural History Museum. Petiver was an observant field biologist whose own collecting was focused in south-east England. However, he also obtained specimens from an astoundingly wide geographical area via numerous collectors, more than 160 of whose names are known. While many were wild-collected, gardens in Great Britain and abroad also played a role in facilitating the study of the many new and strange exotics that were arriving in Europe. A new estimate of the number of specimens present in Petiver's herbarium suggests a figure of ca 21 000 gatherings. In this article, the appearance of the bound volumes, and the arrangement of the specimens within them, is assessed and contrasted with those volumes assembled by Leonard Plukenet and Hans Sloane. Petiver's published species descriptions and illustrations are shown to be frequently associated with extant specimens, letters and other manuscripts, making the whole a rich archive for the study of early modern collecting of natural curiosities at a time of increasing ‘scientific’ purpose.

伦敦药剂师詹姆斯·皮提维（James Petiver，约 1663–1718年）从世界各地辛苦采集的干燥植物标本，构成了汉斯·斯隆爵士（Hans Sloane）爵士大标本室的重要组成部分，但其价值却被低估了，现在收藏在伦敦自然历史博物馆。Petiver是一位观察家现场生物学家，他的收藏集中在英格兰东南部。但是，他还通过众多收藏家从惊人的广阔地理区域中获得了标本，其中有160多个名字是已知的。尽管许多都是野生采集的，但英国和国外的花园在促进对进入欧洲的许多新奇异域生物的研究中也发挥了作用。存在于Petiver的植物标本数的新的估计显示的数字CA 21000次聚会。在本文中，对装订的体积的外观以及其中的标本排列进行了评估，并将其与伦纳德·普鲁克内特和汉斯·斯隆组装的那些体积进行了对比。Petiver已发表的物种描述和插图显示出经常与现存的标本，信件和其他手稿相关联，这使整个数据库成为了研究日益现代的自然好奇心研究的丰富档案库，而这个时代越来越具有“科学性”。