DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY 



P«-lif^^ L Louise H. Coburn, 



naUOr ^ Skowhegan 



THE JOSSELYN BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF MAINE. 

 By Louise H. Coburn. 



In July, 1895, a group of botanists and plant-lovers from dififerent 

 parts of the State gathered in the rooms of the Portland Society of 

 Natural History and organized the Josselyn Botanical Society of 

 Maine. The first suggestion of the Society came from Mrs. H. K. 

 Morrell of Gardiner, while to Prof. Merritt L. Fernald, a native of 

 Orono, at that time just beginning his distinguished career at Har- 

 vard University, must be awarded the credit and perhaps also the 

 responsibility of actually organizing it, and of carrying it largely by 

 his own effort and enthusiasm through its early years. The name 

 was suggested by Prof. Fernald, and was taken from the name of 

 the first man to make something of a study of Maine plants. This 

 was John Josselyn, who in the seventeenth century spent some time 

 on our coast in the town of Scarboro, and in his book entitled "New 

 England's Rarities Discovered : in Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Serpents 

 and Plants of that Country," published in London in 1672, gave the 

 first account on record of plant life in what is now the State of 

 Maine. Prof. Asa L. Lane of Coburn Classical Institute, Water- 

 ville, was the first president of the Josselyn Society, and Merritt L. 

 Fernald the first secretary. 



The society has held a summer meeting in June, July or August 

 every year since its beginning, except in the war year 1918, and two 

 winter meetings have been held in Portland, making a total of 27 

 meetings, including the one for organization, in the quarter century 

 of its history. There were 72 charter members, and there is a 

 present membership of 60. The attendance at meetings has aver- 

 aged between a dozen and 25, with one or two falling below the 

 smaller, and a few exceeding the larger number. The meetings 

 have been held in all sections of the State, sometimes in the central 

 part, as Waterville, Dover, Gardiner, Skowhegan, and Farmington, 

 or in the southern, as Brunswick and Shapleigh, but oftener on the 

 coast, as Kittery, Wells, Peaks Island, Thomaston, Manset and 

 Machias, in the forest country, as Pleasant Ridge Plantation, Jack- 

 man, Kingfield and Greenville, among the hills, as in Oxford, or on 

 the border, as Fort Kent, Van Buren, Houlton, Parsonsfield and 

 Fryeburg, where the hope would be entertained of finding new and 

 interesting floral conditions, and of adding to the Maine list of 

 plants. Van Buren at one border, Kittery at another, and Fryeburg 

 at still another represent the extremes of our pilgrimages. 



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