

[Eepriuted from The Scientific Monthly, June, 1917.] 



FLORA OP THE VICINITY OF NEW YOEK 



Bx NORMAN TAYLOR 



BKOOKLYN BOTANIC GAEDEN 



rTN 1749-1751 Cadwallader Golden, lieutenant-governor of New York 

 -J- and correspondent of Linnaeus, published the first flora of New 

 York and vicinit)'. It was a list of the plants as observed by himself 

 and his daughter Jane Golden, growing near their home in what is still 

 called "Goldenham," Orange Co. Written by a man who wrote to 

 Gronovius that "botany is an amusement which may be made greater 

 to the Ladies who are often at a loss to fill up their time," it well 

 reflects the attitude of his period. As a historical record the list is 

 valuable. As a forecast of the modern position of botany or women, 

 his remarks are commended to botanists and to those feminists who find 

 it difficult to "fill up their time." 



Not until 1819 was there another list of this importance, when 

 John Torrey published his "Catalogue of Plants growing Spontane- 

 ously within thirty miles of the City of New York." This was a book 

 of 102 pages and listed hundreds of species and varieties, some of which 

 are now rare or extinct near the city. To touch only the high spots 

 of a long historical record, mention should be made of Leggett's "Ee- 

 vised catalogue of the plants, native and naturalized, within thirty-three 

 miles of New York" (1870-1874) and the "Preliminary Catalogue 

 of Anthophyta and Pteridophyta " reported as growing spontaneously 

 within one hundred miles of New York City by Britton, Stearns and 

 Poggenburg (1888). Some of these lists contained notes on the dis- 

 tribution of the species, but in most cases only lists of plant names 

 were possible. The outstanding character of them all, as in the begin- 

 nings of most science, was that they were chiefly records of facts. 

 They were the culmination of our forefathers' study of the local flora, 

 arranged in orderly fashion, which at that time was all that could be 



idone. 



It is impossible to talk about the vegetation of New York without 

 knowing very definitely what are the units of that vegetation, and it 

 is the chief legacy of this older generation of New York botanists, that 

 they have handed down to us so complete and so accurate a record 

 of those units, as they knew them. There were, of course, hosts of 

 minor efforts covering the region near the city, or parts of it, about 

 which nothing can be said here, except that like the more important 

 works their object was simply to record the facts. It should not, how- 

 ever, be implied that these workers lacked a larger vision which should 

 seek to explain or correlate their patiently acquired facts. For we 

 find in July, 1870, a forecast of what they were striving for, when in 



