Specimen Spotlight - The Farlow "Thousand-Dollar Specimens"

James Mitchell, Research Assistant, Pfister Lab

Swedish zoologist and ethnographer Eric Georg Mjöberg, seeking sources of funding for a 1925 expedition to Borneo, approached the Farlow Herbarium for a grant in return for all specimens of cryptogams (spore-producing "plants"; this outdated category includes true plants such as ferns, lycopods, mosses, liverworts, hornworts and green algae, but also non-plant organisms such as fungi, lichens, other algae, slime molds, water molds etc.) that were collected on the expedition1,2. He was given $1000 (equivalent to roughly $18,000 in 2026)3.

In return for this funding, Mjöberg collected only about a dozen specimens, including four liverworts, two fungi, and about half a dozen mosses. He had evidently spent most of the expedition doing research for a book4, a copy of which the Farlow library still had to purchase 5. This scant handful of specimens were given the name "The Thousand-Dollar Specimens" due to their high individual cost. The bryophytes were identified by Edward Bunting Bartram6, the liverworts by Alexander William Evans7, and the fungi by Julian Howell Miller8.

While a rather short list, the specimens included two which Bartram described as new taxa: Dicranoloma euryloma var. rugifolium and Cryphaea borneensis. While these specimens were clearly not worth the price paid for them, they still highlight the value of even sparse collecting in the world of taxonomy.

 

specimen sheet with Cryphaea_borneensis, labels, ruler, annotations
Cryphaea borneensis
Hypoxylon_truncatum specimen and label
Hypoxylon truncatum 
Lepidozia_borneensis specimen and label
Lepidozia borneensis
  1. Riddle, Gertrude Hollister. Letter to Julian Howell Miller. 6 October 1936. Box 1, Folder 45. Farlow Herbarium Archives - Correspondence Circa 1931-1934, Miller, J.H.: 1936.
  2. Riddle, Gertrude Hollister. Letter to Hempstead Castle. 19 July "1925" [1934]. Folder 17. Lincoln Ware Riddle and Gertrude Hollister Riddle Papers Series II. Misc. correspondence to Mrs. Riddle, 1934-1935.
  3. https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
  4. Mjöberg, E. 1927. Borneo, Huvudjägarnas Land. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. 514 pp.
  5. https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990058000530203941/catalog
  6. Bartram, E.B. 1936. Bornean Mosses, principally from Mount Kinabalu. The Philippine Journal of Science 61(2): 235-252.
  7. Evans, Alexander William. Letter to Gertrude Hollister Riddle. 6 August 1934. Box 1, Folder 16. Farlow Herbarium Archives - Correspondence Circa 1931-1934, Evans, A.W.
  8. Miller, Julian Howell. Letter to Gertrude Hollister Riddle. 21 December 1936. Box 1, Folder 45. Farlow Herbarium Archives - Correspondence Circa 1931-1934, Miller, J.H.: 1936.
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