Burgess: Work of Torrey Botanical Club 553 



and informal continuance of friendly botanical association on this 

 island during still earlier years. Botanists have ever been friends, 

 and collecting in company has been one of the pleasant features of 

 their pursuit. Little remains on record, however, regarding early 

 cooperation among botanical workers in New York. Miss Jane 

 Colden (afterward Mrs. Dr. Farquhar), who left a long list of the 

 native plants of the Hudson River region at her death in 1754, 

 had studied with her father, Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden, and 

 the father and daughter formed a working partnership in botany, 

 a botanical club of two, which produced the first genuine botanical 

 writing in New York. The next botanist to write of New York, 

 Major John LeConte, publishing his list of the plants on Manhattan 

 Island in 181 1, had also pursued his collections in company. One 

 of Dr. Torrey's first recollections is said to have been the sight of 

 two lads coming into the city dusty with tramping and laden with 

 plant-collections. One of these he was told was "the LeConte 



* 



boy." Soon afterward the Elgin Botanical Garden grew up here 

 under the fostering care of Dr. Hosack; and had it continued it is 

 probable that a botanical club would have developed then. As it 

 was, the Lyceum supplied both meeting-place and a medium' of 

 publication for scientific workers, and no botanical club as such 

 developed, though botanical workers still worked in pairs ; as 

 witness Torrey himself with Gray in the Torrey and Gray Flora, 

 1838-43, and, to descend to less important work, the Flora of 

 Central Park, which was also the joint product in 1857 of two 

 workers, Rawolle and Pilat, the latter an Austrian botanist who 

 had become the first Chief-Gardener of Central Park. 



The spirit of fraternity and good-fellowship which during the 

 earlier years of Dr. Torrey's life had led to frequent but informal 

 meetings of fellow-workers, and had given them a certain regularity 

 in 1858, reached crystallization in what was termed the Torrey 

 semi-centennial celebration of Dec. 20, 1867, at the expiration of 

 fifty years since Torrey's presentation of his Catalogue of the Plants 

 within 30 miles of New York, to the Xew York Lyceum (published 

 in Albany 1 8 1 9, but completed and presented in 1 8 1 7). This night, 

 which was one of deep snow and typical December storm, was to 

 the select company within, with Dr. Torrey himself as guest of 

 honor, one of the warmest and cheeriest of celebrations, and was 



