Volume 9 Number 7 



The Plant World 



JULY, 1906 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT 

 OF BOTANY IN NEW YORK CITY.- 



By Henry H. Rusby, M.D. 



Dcaii of the XlZ\.' York College of Plianiiaey. 



I. Early Efforts. 



Were we to commence with the very earHest botanical history 

 of onr city, we should be carried back to a time when, as an 

 important seaport in a new world, it was made the temporary 

 headquarters of visiting botanists, who accumulated here their 

 collections, maintaining some of them in a living condition, until 

 the arrival of a convenient opportunity for dispatching them to 

 the mother countries. Such occurrences as these exerted little 

 influence in the permanent development of a botanical center. 

 Developmental work of the kind that concerns us was active, pre- 

 vious to the close of the eighteenth century, at some points farther 

 south, especially at Philadelphia, and in New England, but not 

 at New York. 



The first important event here was the work of Doctor, after- 

 ward Governor, Cadwallader Colden and his daughter Jane, who, 

 near the middle of the eighteenth century, conducted their studies 

 with the aid of a small botanical garden at their home near New- 

 burgh. Perhaps the most important part of this work consisted 



* Portion of an address delivered before the Torrey Botanical Club at 

 a special mee-ting held on May 2t„ 1906, in commemoration of the tenth 

 anni\-ersary of the commencement of work in the de\'elopment of the New 

 York Botanical Garden. Printed in full in Torreya, Vol. 6, Nos. 6-7, June 

 and July, 1906. 



