The Municipal Museum of Zierikzee houses a loose-leafed herbarium containing 360 dried plant specimens, of which the provenance, age and maker were until recently unknown. By studying the plant specimens, paper, decorations and labels, an image was conveyed of an early 18th century herbarium that matched the description of a herbarium from the legacy of Jakob Ligtvoet, who was gardener in the Leiden Hortus botanicus from 1703 till his death in 1752. This herbarium is one of the oldest garden

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... baria of its kind and contains 306 unique species, of which 201 are currently native to the Netherlands. Exotic species come from the Mediterranean (82 spp.), Europe (24), South Africa (8), the Americas (9) and in tropical Asia (7). Based on our comparison of names on the oldest labels, this collection of dried plants was probably started after publication of the first garden catalogue by the prefect of the Leiden garden and professor of botany Herman Boerhaave (1710), but before the second edition in 1719. This historic herbarium reflects the state-of-the-art of botanical science and the international network of Dutch botanical gardens in the early 18th century.