Sullivant, a native of the Northwest Territory, was a graduate of Yale. A wealthy man, he was able to effectively indulge a broad interest in natural history. Leaning first toward ornithology, then conchology, he finally focused his whole attention on botany. He then specialized further, and became the world's authority of his time on the mosses and liverworts. He was a corresponding member of the Academy.

This collection consists of interleaved additions, corrections, and ecological notes covering 183 pages. Bound into letterpress volume of the Mosses and Liverworts, by William S. Sullivant (a part of Asa Gray's manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, 2nd edition, 1856.) There is a note on the fly leaf by Andrew D. Rodgers, III, author of a definitive biography of Sullivant, which says the interleaved notes are in the hand of Sullivant, and that this may have been his own interleaved copy, which he presented to C. F. Austin.