1 88 SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



income by writing articles and reporting for The 

 New York Tribune. When he had his medical 

 degree he went to Troy to practise, " giving such 

 attention as he could to music, physiology and 

 botany." 



The harmonies of nature apparently attracted 

 him more than disease, for he became teacher of 

 these three sciences in Charlotteville Seminary. 

 There was a large swamp near the school, and in 

 it Howe found the beautiful American Jacob's 

 Ladder, Polemonium Van Bruntiae, Britton, this 

 was the first-known New York locality for a plant 

 then thought to be the same as the European 

 Polemonium coeruleum, Linnaeus. 



The Charlotteville Seminary being accident- 

 ally destroyed by fire, Howe took the same pro- 

 fessorships in Fort Edward Institute, where he 

 " vigorously studied mycology " and, incident- 

 ally, the charms of a fellow-teacher, Emily Z. 

 Sloan, who became an " Howeana " and blos- 

 somed thenceforth beside him. 



After thirteen years of active medical work in 

 Yonkers, New York, he went to Lansingburg 

 and found sufficient employment in botanical 

 excursions, and in studying local flora. He be- 

 came a member of The Torrey Botanical Club, 

 and got in touch with fellow- workers by letter 

 and exchange of specimens. In 1894 he pub- 

 lished, with Dr. H. C. Gordinier, The Flora 



