146 



Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 



Vol. 27, Art. 2 



Transactions for 1856-1857, indicated the 

 rapidly increasing interest in applied 

 botanv. These treatises, presented by O. 

 Ordwav (1857) of Lawn Ridge, H. L. 

 Brush (1857) of Ottawa, Samuel Ed- 

 wards (1857) of La Moille, J. P. Eames 

 (1857), Dr. Frederick Brendel (1857) 

 of Peoria, and L A. Lapham (1857//) of 

 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, dealt with sev- 

 eral phases of research, including culture 

 and cultivation. The types of plants 

 studied were evergreens, flowers, grasses, 

 grain fruits, and vines. 



At La Moille, Edwards started plant- 

 ing evergreens in 1845 and, by 1857, had 

 planted more than 125,000 plants ob- 

 tained from forests of Minnesota, Wis- 

 consin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New 

 York, and upper Canada and also some 

 obtained from eastern and European 

 nurseries — in all, more than 25 species 

 of evergreen plants. He was most favor- 

 ably impressed with the growth of Nor- 

 way and black spruces, Austrian, Scotch, 

 and white pines, and balsam fir. Siberian 

 and American arbor vitaes and red cedar, 

 he found, were excellent for screening. 

 Other species he mentioned that suc- 

 ceeded well in this climate and soil were 

 Irish, Swedish, and savin junipers, red 

 spruce, and a variety of pine from Ten- 

 nessee. Hemlock was subject to winter 

 injury; Douglas spruce, cedar of Leba- 

 non, deodar cedar, silver fir, English and 

 Irish yews, Himalayan and Araucarian 

 pines, and Chinese arbor vitae did not 

 survive the winters. In 1857 Dr. Cyrus 

 Thomas, with the help of S. Burtley, 

 started studying the flora of the Murphys- 

 boro region of southern Illinois (Thomas 

 1857). 



EARLY ACTIVITIES 



Among the persons interested in botany 

 who were active in organizing the Illinois 

 Natural Historv Societv were M. S. 

 Bebb, Dr. Frederick Brendel, E. Hall, 

 Robert Kennicott, Dr. S. B. Mead, Dr. 

 Cyrus Thomas, and Dr. George Vasey. 

 Much of the information obtained by 

 them on the flora of Illinois was pub- 

 lished in the Illinois Natural History 

 Society Transactions. When the original 

 purpose in organizing the Natural His- 

 tory Society was set forth as the advance- 



ment of science, botany was mentioned 

 along with entomology and geology. In 

 succeeding years special interests de- 

 veloped in the field of botany, as indicated 

 by the published works of Brendel, Bebb, 

 Vasey, Thomas, Edwards, G. W. Minier, 

 Henry W. Bannister, and H. H. Bab- 

 cock from 1859 to 1887, most or all of 

 whom were members of the Natural His- 

 tory Society. Brendel was a prolific 

 worker and was the author of numerous 

 articles published over a period of nearlv 

 30 vears (Brendel 185%, 1859/^, 1859r, 

 1859r/, 1860, 1861, 1870, 1876, 1887). 

 These articles included information on 

 the flora of Peoria and other areas of the 

 state. Brendel was interested in shrubs 

 and forest trees, especially the oaks. Also, 

 he wrote on rare plants in the state and 

 on a peculiar growth of the water lily. 

 It is significant that an article by him, 

 "The Tree in Winter," was one of the 

 first articles published in the Bulletin of 

 the Illinois State Museum of Natural 

 History. 



Bebb (1859) published a list of 44 

 species of plants occurring in the northern 

 counties of the state; his list was an addi- 

 tion to the catalog by Lapham (1857<7). 

 Vasey 's interest in different phases of 

 botany is indicated by his papers (Vasev 

 1859,' 1861, 1870«, WQb). Among these 

 papers were studies on flora, including 

 mosses of the state and maritime plants 

 of the Great Lakes and interior regions ; 

 also, descriptions of two plants new to 

 Illinois. 



When Thomas (186L) proposed a 

 plan for a natural history survey of Illi- 

 nois, he suggested that this survey include 

 a systematic cataloging of the flora and 

 fauna of the state and that the data be 

 published so that the same work would 

 not need to be repeated by others. Ban- 

 nister (1868) described prairie and forest 

 plants of Cook County, and Babcock 

 (1872) described the flora of the Chicago 

 area. John Wolf and Elihu Hall prepared 

 a list of mosses, liverworts, and lichens 

 of the state. This list, which was pub- 

 lished in the Bulletin of the Illinois State 

 Laboratory of Natural History, contained 

 115 genera and 386 species (Wolf & 

 Hall 1878). Wolf was on the staff of the 

 State Laboratory of Natural Historv in 

 1880. 



