Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 10. September, 1908. No. 117. 
CITY BOTANIZING. 
WirLiAM P. RICH. 
Ir is commonly believed that the botanical collector must of neces- 
sity get away from the city to find materiał for his studies and that the 
open fields and woodlands of the country are the only places of interest 
to him in the pursuit of his favorite avocation. 
It is one of the advantages, however, of plant collecting that the 
botanist is not always obliged to travel far to find objects of interest 
to him. If, by reason of the exacting requirements of his daily occu- 
pation, he is unable to visit new fields in distant regions during the 
flowering season, he can generally find close at hand abundant sources 
of interesting and profitable employment. 
There are few localities that will not yield some plants worthy of 
record, the consideration of which will repay the local botanist for 
the time devoted to them, and even within the city's limits will be found 
collecting grounds that may well engage his attention. 
In this connection I cannot refrain from referring to a paragraph 
in an address delivered in 1816 by Stephen Elliott, the author of the 
* Botany of South Carolina and Georgia." Speaking of his favorite 
study he said “It has been for many years the occupation of my leisure 
moments; it is a merited tribute to say that it has lightened for me 
many a heavy and sometimes many a rugged hour; that beguiled by 
its charms, I have found no road rough or difficult, no journey tedious, 
no country desolate or barren. In a solitude never solitary, in a desert 
never without employment. I have found it a relief from the lan- 
guor of idleness, the pressure of business, and even the unavoidable 
calamities of life." 
'То the sentiments so well expressed in this quotation I am moved to 
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