living tribute to Bay State botanists 



By NORTON H. NICKERSON 

 Department of Botany 



WHY have plants endeared their 

 study to a small group of 

 scientists — the botanists? Is it per- 

 haps that plants do not, as a rule, 

 talk back, squeal and squirm when 

 handled, or voice loud disgust over 

 inadequacies of water, minerals or 

 sunshine? Or is it their great di- 

 versity in size and form that excites 

 the curiosities of men? 



Most of us, in the halcyon days 

 of our youth, have pressed a par- 

 ticular memorable flower or a "four- 

 leaf clover" between the pages of a 

 book. This same activity of press- 

 ing small plants and portions of 

 larger ones, when coupled with the 

 human instinct to collect, soon re- 

 sults in an accumulation of a size- 

 able quantity of "baled hay," which 

 the botanists dignify by referring to 

 it as an herbarium. 



unvarying record 



The beauty of such a plant col- 

 lection is that it serves as an un- 

 varying record of plant appearances. 



The Herbarium of the University 

 of Massachusetts housed in Clark 

 Hall, consists of about 150,000 

 specimens of pressed plants collect- 

 ed from all parts of the globe : Europe, 

 Alaska, New Zealand, India, and 

 Argentina are a few of the places 

 represented. About 20 percent of 

 these plants were collected in our 

 own state. This fraction, which is 

 housed separately, is known as the 

 Massachusetts State Herbarium. 



Responsibility for the upkeep of 

 these collections under the depart- 



ment head is vested in Miss Gladys 

 Miner, the Curator, who has a full- 

 time job keeping up with changes, 

 repairs, and additions. The col- 

 lection includes specimens of slime 

 molds, lichens, algae, fungi, mosses, 

 and ferns in addition to those of 

 flowering plants. The assembly of 

 this vast collection has required the 

 work of many people over the years. 

 All but the lichens and a few fungi 

 have been put into workable order. 



In 1869, the Hon. William Knowl- 

 ton of Upton, Mass., an early trus- 

 tee of the University, gave $2000 

 for herbarium specimens and stor- 

 age cases. 



About 12,000 specimens were pur- 

 chased from W. W. Denslow, an 

 amateur botanist; it was this collec- 

 tion that was called the Knowlton 

 Herbarium. 



The largest accession to the her- 

 barium has been a "permanent loan" 

 of about 85,000 specimens that 

 previously formed the Amherst Col- 

 lege herbarium. Many valuable col- 

 lections of fungi were added through 

 the efforts of the late Professor A. 

 Vincent Osmun. 



state plants organized 



The diUgent work of the late Dr. 

 Ray Ethan Torrey resulted in sepa- 

 rating the plants collected within the 

 state from the main collection. Vir- 

 tually all plants native to Massachu- 

 setts are represented here: 612 gen- 

 era are grouped into 135 families. 



Dr. Torrey's unusual ability to 

 identify plants from fragments made 



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