Rbodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 1 June, 1899 No. 6 
THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY BOTANICAL SOCIETY. : 
Maria L. OWEN. 
THE sketch of the New England Botanical Club recalls a similar 
association, the Connecticut Valley Botanical Society, founded in June, 
1873. I had then lived in Springfield twenty years and had hardly 
met a botanist in all that time. Of course, I longed for companion- 
ship. So at last I took pains to seek the acquaintance of Miss Shattuck, 
the teacher of botany at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, pulled the wires that 
got me invited there, and then laid before her my plan for stated 
gatherings of the botanists of the Valley. She approved and told me 
that the Rev. David Peck of Whately would be sure to help me. When I 
wrote to him he was interested, but said that the Rev. Henry G. Jesup 
of Amherst would be an invaluable helper, — and so he proved. Next 
I invited the three to meet at my house, June roth, 1873. They came, 
stayed a day and a night, and we laid our plans, formed and adopted 
a constitution, and chose a president and secretary, leaving the other 
offices unfilled. The first article of the constitution was: “The un- 
dersigned, for the promotion of the study of botany, and for mutual 
improvement in that science, form an association, to be called the 
Connecticut Valley Botanical Society." ' 
Now, no two clubs are exactly alike, but it seems to me that the 
aims of this society and yours are the same. In one respect, however, 
the New England Botanical Club can, if it insists upon the point, claim 
to be the first of its kind in New England, it is a clubfor gentlemen only, 
while ours was open to both sexes. I was secretary from the beginning, 
and have, as a valued perquisite (the only one that anybody ever had), 
the book which contains the complete records. It was a very success- 
1 This bit of botanical history, which is an extract from a personal letter to a 
member of the New England Botanical Club, is here published by the kind permission 
of its author.—EbD. 
