Doing Burlington dirty

Happily for me, the glory of all Swedish herbaria — formed by the eighteenth-century botanist, Carl Linnaeus, as he systematically classified the vegetable kingdom — is in London, having been acquired after his death by the English scientist, Sir James Edward Smith. This precious and fragile collection, now more than two centuries old, is meticulously preserved in a temperature-controlled vault under Piccadilly. The Linnean Society of London, which owns it, is one of the five learned societies occupying the Victorian wings of Burlington House, either side of the Royal Academy. My visit to this herbarium filled me with both wonder and rage. Wonder because it exemplifies the role that private scholarly associations (and anyone who pays the subscription) have played — and continue