RESEARCH 
AT THE 
BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN?! 
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 
SS . for the advancement of botanical science and knowledge, and the 
NRCS of original researches therein and in kindred subjects.” (Laws 
of New York, 1807, Chapter 178.) 
The following pages are offered as a brief survey and report 
of the botanical research carried on at the Brooklyn Botanic 
Garden from its establishment in 1910 to date. 
In the Act of the New York State Legislature, authorizing the 
City of New York to enter into agreement with the Trustees of 
the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences for the establishment 
of a Botanic Garden in Brooklyn, it is specified, as quoted above, 
that the Garden shall include in its activities the advancement, as 
well as the diffusion, of knowledge. 
In the Agreement of December 28, 1909, between the City of 
New York (through its Board of Estimate and Apportionment) 
and the Trustees of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 
concerning the establishment of the Garden it is provided, in 
paragraph sixteen, that the director (there called the ‘‘ Chief bot- 
anist’’) and other members of staff “shall make botanic re- 
searches .. . and that they shall labor to the best of thew ability 
for the advancement of botanical science.” 
Thus, from the beginning, botanical research has been an es- 
sential and, in fact, an obligatory function of the Garden, correl- 
ative with botanical education. 
Even before the site of the Garden had been turned over to our 
Trustees for administration, and while the three or four persons 
that constituted the Garden Staff were occupying temporary quar- 
1 BrooKtyN Botanic GARDEN ReEcorp, Vol. XVI, No. 3, July, 1927. 
4 
