HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE TORREY 
BOTANICAL CLUB 
By Тонх HENDLEY BARNHART 
The New York Botanical Garden 
The Torrey Botanical Club developed so gradually from a 
mere group of associated botanical enthusiasts into a full-fledged 
scientific society that it is quite impossible to fix upon an exact 
date of origin which might not be honestly disputed. In an early 
number of the Bulletin, the beginnings of the Club are traced to 
“the summer of 1866”; а few years later the editor remarked in 
a footnote “not later than 1865”’;} in later years Dr. Allen, one of 
the earliest members, is said to have claimed as early a date as 
1858,1 but there is nothing to verify this claim, and it is possible 
that he has been misquoted. Dr. Thurber, in his inaugural 
address as president of the Club, in 1873, when many if not most 
of the original members of the Club must have been among his 
auditors, declared frankly: “We have no record of the date of the 
beginning of the Club."$ 
The earliest positive evidence of the existence of an association 
which can be definitely connected with our present organization 
seems to be a small printed notice preserved in our archives. It 
is dated at the office of the American A griculturist, December 10, 
1867, signed by George Thurber and Thomas Hogg, and calls a 
meeting of “the Botanical Club, to be held at this office on Satur- 
day, the 14th inst., at 2 o'clock P. M. A full attendance is de- 
sired, in order that final arrangements may be made for the festival 
of the 20th." Presumably the meeting thus called was duly held, 
for on the 20th the Club gathered, with various botanically dis- 
tinguished guests from out of town, to enjoy a supper at the Astor 
House. The occasion was the celebration of the fiftieth anni- 
* Bull. Torrey Club 1: 45- 1870. 
