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  Flora sinensis is one of the first natural history books on China by a European. Authored by Michał Piotr Boym, it was published in 1656 by Matthæi Rictii in Vienna. Boym dedicated it to Leopold I (1640-1705), Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia and King of Serbia, and included a poem incorporating chronograms alluding to his coronation date, 1655. Augustin Pyramus, a Swiss Botanist, identified Boym as the first person to use ‘flora’ to define the plants of a particular region, habitat or geological period.

The story of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH) begins in the 1830s, when a small group of men filled a two-room wooden building in Public Square, downtown Cleveland, with mounted animals. This building was known as the “Ark,” and the men who gathered there, united in their passion for natural history, were called “Arkites.” The Arkites were led by William Case, who would later become mayor of Cleveland. He, his brother, and his father had used the Ark as a place to retreat from work, and in the absence of any other museums in the city, it became a hub for all kinds of collection and research. In 1876, the Ark was relocated to Case Hall.