4 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



or hydrographical region. Such a flora as that of Phila- 

 delphia, comprising in New Jersey and Pennsylvania some 

 1200 species at the outside, can be classified into several eco- 

 logical communities, such as the Hydrophytic, Halophytic 

 and Mesophytic, the first of which, by way of example, 

 may again be further sub-divided into those societies which 

 comprise the water plants growing in the Delaware and 

 tributary streams and Atlantic Ocean, such as the Plankton 

 Society, the Hydrocharite Society, the Nereid Society, the 

 Sea Grass Society, Schizophytic Society, Reedy Swamp 

 Society, the Swamp Society, the Sphagnum Bog Society, 

 the Cedar Swamp Society, etc. 



The peculiar attractiveness of the region and the rich- 

 ness of the flora have so enticed botanists into the field that 

 systematic botany has been almost exclusively the depart- 

 ment of the science practiced by a majority of those men- 

 tioned in this work. Then, too, a living w^as not to be 

 had by the prosecution of botany in America in the early 

 days. It was pursued solely as a pastime and a healthy 

 recreation by busy men, physicians, bankers and merchants. 

 We find, however, in looking over the list of names, that 

 wherever botany was pursued as the main object of life, 

 that those men, who thus devoted their entire time to the 

 science, became famous. Excluding names of the present 

 generation, John Bartram, Humphrey Marshall, Zaccheus 

 Collins, William Darlington, Elias Durand, John Evans, A. 

 P. Garber, Joshua Hoopes, Peter Kalm, Adam Kuhn, James 

 Logan, Isaac Martindale, Andre Michaux, G. H. E. Muhlen- 

 berg, Lewis D. von Schweinitz, Thomas Nuttall, W. P. C. 

 Barton, Charles Pickering, Frederick Pursh, C. S. Rafinesque, 

 John Redfield, and David Townsend, achieved distinction 



