Dr. Nickerson compares speci- 

 mens of the native lady-slip- 

 per orchid. Orderly files in 

 the background make up only 

 partjof the vast collection of 

 native plants. 



hsi office a clearing-house for the 

 many inquiries sent in by people 

 throughout the state. Frequently, 

 the sample submitted was merely a 

 single leaf, twig, or shrivelled berry. 

 Dr. Torrey used the herbarium 

 as a source of verification, for rarely 

 is a plant submitted which is not 

 duplicated in the state collection. 

 The herbarium is also used for 

 instructional purposes — its other im- 

 portant function. 



"State Cabinet" 



One of the oldest parts of the state 

 collection has been described by Dr. 

 Torrey and Mr. Edward L. Davis in 

 volume 55 of Rhodora. This as- 

 semblage, part of an early natural 

 history record called the "State 

 Cabinet" embodied some of the 

 oldest collecting done for a state 

 herbarium, some sheets dating back 

 to 1824. The "Cabinet" had origin- 

 ally been kept in the State House, 

 but after founding of the University 

 in 1863, it was sent to Amherst. 



Collectors who contributed to the 

 present State Herbarium are numer- 

 ous. Many are not botanists at all : 

 doctors, lawyers, ministers, and 

 homemakers have all derived pleas- 

 ure from the plant-collecting hobby. 



The names of Dr. George E. Stone 

 and of Professor A. Vincent Osmun, 

 former heads of the Department of 

 Botany, appear with great frequency. 

 The amount of work devoted to the 

 herbarium by these men is an indi- 

 cation of their keen interest in 

 making as complete a record as pos- 

 sible of the state plants. 



Locations that were visited vary 

 from salt-marshes long since buried 

 in Boston to the shores of Province- 

 town and the hills of West Stock- 

 bridge. 



living record 



The special collection of state 

 plants is in its present useful form 

 largely because of the efforts of 

 Dr. Torrey. Yet, without the work 

 of his predecessors and contempo- 

 raries in collecting, observing, and 

 integrating the knowledge obtained 

 from basic research on these plants, 

 his task could not have been done. 



An herbarium, then, far from ap- 

 pearing as a rotting collection of 

 dried plants, becomes for the seri- 

 ously interested man a living tribute 

 to the work of others and a challenge 

 ing way to seek deeper understand- 

 ing of the plant world. 



