WASHINGTON BOTANICAL SOCIETY. 



This society, of which the preliminary meeting was held on March 

 13, 1817, pursuant to a public notice, and which adopted a consti- 

 tution on March 20, continued in existence until 1826, though its 

 activities were mainly confined to the first four years. The original 

 records of its proceedings, contained in a small manuscript volume 

 now in the possession of the Botanical Society of Washington, with 

 some other material of that period, have served as the basis for a 

 paper by Mr. Frederick V. Coville on " Early botanical activity in 

 the District of Columbia," published in the Records of the Columbia 

 Historical Society, Washington, D. C, vol. 5, pp. 176-194, 1902. 

 Mr. Coville has so fully described the work of the society that only 

 some of the more salient features will be spoken of here. 



The objects of the society, as defined in the constitution, were 



" to collect, arrange, preserve and describe all the vegetable produc- 

 tions within the limits of the District of Columbia whether indig- 

 enous or exotic and to detail when practicable all their medicinal, 

 esculent and other properties ; " and " to publish quarterly, if deemed 

 necessary, whenever the society shall have obtained a full knowledge 

 of all the vegetable productions of the said District, a Flora, with 

 colored plates ; each plant to be classed and arranged according to the 

 Linnean System and described, if known, under the direction of the 

 president and vice president of the society." 



Meetings were to be held twice monthly during the spring, summer 

 and fall, and once monthly during the winter. The constitution 

 further provided that, 



" The society shall be divided into four committees, each committee 

 to consist of one-fourth of the members, including officers, whose 

 duty it shall be to collect and preserve the specimens of plants they 

 may find within the portions of the District assigned them for ex- 

 amination, which specimens shall be preserved in a herbarium pre- 

 pared for that purpose by the society and placed under the charge of 

 the curators. 



" Every committee shall be furnished with a herbarium to preserve 

 the duplicate plants they may procure in the course of their re- 

 searches, and when the class, order, genus and species of a plant 

 cannot by them be ascertained, it shall be their duty to lay it before 

 the society at their stated or special meeting, to be examined and 

 arranged." 



The subscribers to the constitution, thirteen in number, the officers 

 for the first year being indicated, were as follows: Rev. Dr. James 

 6343°— 17 6 75 



