W. Mitten

  • Name

    William Mitten

  • Dates

    1819 - 1906

  • Specialities

    Bryophytes, Lichens

  • Roles

    Author, Determiner, Collector, Writer

  • Movement Details

    United States of America, England

  • Notes

    William Mitten was a pharmacist by trade, and a bryologist by avocation. He spend most of his life in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, England. In his free time, he amassed the largest private brophyte herbarium in his day, and published over 50 articles on mosses and liverworts. His collection today forms a very significant part of the bryophyte holdings at The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium.

    Mitten was self-trained as a botanist, and it was through his acquaintance with William Borrer that he came in contact with William Hooker. Following the death in 1848 of Thomas Taylor, the Irish bryologist who had previously worked with the Hookers, bryophytes sent to Kew were forwarded to Miten for naming and sorting. Almost exclusively from this material Mitten described over 1000 species of bryophytes between 1851 and 1903.

    The New York Botanical Garden purchased the Mitten herbarium of approximately 4,000 specimens in 1906 for $2000.
    From: Thiers, Index to the genera and species of Hepaticae described by William Mitten. Brittonia 35: 271-300. 1983,

    Major works:
    1859. Musci Indiae orientalis. (Musc. Ind. Orient.)
    1860. Descriptions of some new species of musci from New Zealand. (reprinted from J. Proc. Linn. Soc., Bot. 4: 64-100)
    1869. Musci austro-americani. (Musc. Austr.-Amer.)
    1879. Musci, in Transit of Venus Expeditions. Enumeration of plants hitherto collected in Kerguelen Island. (reprinted from Phil. Trans. 168: 24-25.)
    1882. Australian mosses. (Austral. Moss.)

    Composite works:
    1854. Seemann, B., Bot. Herald, Hepaticae of Paname, p. 245-246.
    Godman, F. du C., Nat Hist. Azores, Bryophyta, p. 288-328.
    1878. Nares, G. S., Narratives of a Voyage to the Polar Sea.
    1854-1855. Hooker, J. D., Fl. Nov. Zeland., Hepaticae 2: 125-160.
    1859. Hooker, J. D., Fl. Tasm., Hepaticae. 2: 221-240.
    1867. Hooker, J. D., Handb. New Zealnd Fl., Hepaticae. 497-549.

  • Collections

    Botanical Collections