THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 245 



esting botanical novelty, as when in visiting Trenton 

 Falls, New York, he wandered into a swampy piece of 

 woodland and came upon a patch of perhaps 100 plants 

 of the beautiful Cypripedium spectabile in full bloom. The 

 sight awakened a strong feeling of enthusiasm. 



After removing to New Jersey and retiring from 

 active business, Joseph Walton came within reach of the 

 pine barrens, where many new forms of vegetable life 

 re-kindled some of his youthful interest, and he again began 

 to collect material for an herbarium, but these latter collec- 

 tions have been given to a reading-room in the village 

 where he lives. 



His principal botanical work, if such it may be called, 

 has been the preparation of a number of natural history 

 articles, mostly descriptive of excursions after flowers, and 

 notices of the plants collected. These have been published 

 from time to time in The Friend, a weekly periodical, 

 published in Philadelphia. 



GEORGE W. FAHNESTOCK. 



George W. Fahnestock, a member of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences and the Pennsylvania Horticultural 

 Society, was a botanist of local repute. A paper of his, 

 entitled " Memoranda of the Effects of Carburetted Hydro- 

 gen Gas on a Collection of Exotic Plants," published in the 

 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, for May, 1858", 

 is of merit as recording his observations on the comparative 

 injury done to greenhouse plants exposed to the gas during 

 the winter of 1857, when the earth was frozen to an unusual 

 depth, three feet or more. The plants are arranged serially 

 in the paper according to Lindley's system, and the effect 

 noted. 



