In sum, the magnet of Agassiz' fame and the prodigious work 

 of Leo Lesquereux together provided the foundation for the 

 Paleobotanical Collections. These early collections include rare 

 materials from Europe that are not available elsewhere in the 

 United States as well as many of the Lesquereux Coal Flora 



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title of America's "type" paleobotanical collection. 



THE PHANEROZOIC COLLECTIONS 



The Botanical Museum was established in 1858. Forty six 

 years later, the Paleobotanical Collections were formally insti- 

 tuted as a part of the Museum. The new collections brought 

 together material previously housed in the Museum of Compar- 

 ative Zoology and the extensive collections of the Boston 

 Museum of Natural History. Many of these collections, includ- 

 ing those of Lesquereux, were poorly curated and catalogued. 

 Robert Tracy Jackson, a respected zoologist specializing in the 

 study of echinoderms, undertook the task of curating these col- 

 lections, and it is because of his effort that these important 

 fossils are available for continued study today. 



The Paleobotanical Collections expanded upon their already 

 formidable base in the closing years of the nineteenth century 

 and the early decades of the twentieth through the acquisition of 

 several major collections and numerous smaller ones. Important 

 gifts of this period include a diverse suite of European fossils 

 donated by E.C. Lee, a large collection of Miocene plants from 

 the Latah Formation of Washington contributed by E.E. Alex- 

 ander, the Schary collection of Devonian plants from Hostin, 

 Bohemia, and the Rogers collection of material from Triassic 

 and Jurassic localities in Virginia, North Carolina, and the Con- 

 necticut Valley. 



Carboniferous plants remained central to the research activi- 

 ties of paleobotanists associated with the Museum. Of particular 

 importance is the Lomax Collection, a selection of some 300 

 thin sections of coal balls cut by the British lapidary James 

 Lomax and acquired by E.C. Jeffrey. These sections display the 

 anatomy of Carboniferous plants with unrivaled clarity, and 



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