Introduction 



discrimination the Ladies' Botanical Society was organized. This 

 survived until 1849, when the Botanical Society of Wilmington 

 belatedly threw open its membership to the ladies, who, perhaps as 

 a salve to former injuries, were exempted from payment of dues! 

 The Ladies' Society showed no lack of enthusiasm for scientific 

 endeavor. It was addressed, at least on one occasion, by Dr. 

 William Darlington. A number of specimens from the collection 

 of one of the members, Hannah W. Richardson, which she gathered 

 and beautifully pressed a century ago, are now in the herbarium of 

 the writer, her great-nephew. 



Later Wilmington Botanists. Our present knowledge of the 

 flora of the Peninsula is due in large measure to the labors of three 

 veteran Wilmington botanists of the last century — Edward Tatnall, 

 Albert Commons and WiUiam M. Canby. 



Edward Tatnall (1818-1898) is believed to have taken part in 

 the preparation of the twelve-page "Catalogue" above mentioned. 

 A later and much more pretentious catalog, prepared by Edward 

 Tatnall, and bearing the same title as its diminutive predecessor, 

 was published by the Wilmington Institute in 1860. This work was 

 widely distributed, and is to be found in most of the botanical 

 libraries of this country. It is an annotated list, based on careful 

 collecting throughout New Castle County, and presents a fairly 

 complete account of the ferns and flowering plants growing wild in 

 that area at the time of publication. It enumerates 1106 species 

 and varieties. 



Included in the Catalogue is a list of Algae (Diatoms and 

 Desmids, microscopic and for the most part unicellular plants), 

 detected in the county by Christian Febiger, a brother-in-law of 

 Edward Tatnall. These had been the objects of his study and 

 occasional publication over many years. His extensive collection 

 of microscopic slides is at the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, and duplicates of many of them are owned by the 

 Society of Natural History of Delaware. 



After the publication of the Tatnall Catalogue of 1860, its 

 author continued to assemble manuscript material looking toward 

 the production of a second edition of that work. However, this 

 was never published, although at the time of its author's death it 

 had assumed substantial proportions, adding many species. Two 

 bound copies of this manuscript work are now in the possession of 

 the Society of Natural History of Delaware. 



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