14 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
financial responsibility rested with the editor for many years, 
and American botany will ever be indebted to the memory of 
Leggett for the powerful and helpful influence thus exerted by him 
upon its development at a critical period. It is not by accident 
that even the latest volume of the Bulletin bears upon its title- 
page the inscription ‘‘ Founded by William Henry Leggett, 1870." 
The name “Torrey Botanical Club” made its first appearance 
in public upon the first page of the first number of the Bulletin, 
and it is a tradition among us that this name was selected and 
applied to the Club, by the editor, in order to have what he re- 
garded as a satisfactory name for his periodical, and was thereupon 
accepted without question (except for mild protest on the part of 
the modest president, Dr. Torrey) by theother members. In any 
event, and however it originated, the name "'stuck," and has 
never been altered to this day, in spite of the very different kind of 
associations to which the name '' Club" is now commonly applied. 
The first list of officers and members was published in the 
Bulletin for December, 1870. The editor mentions that “Ше 
association is rather informal, and somewhat fluctuating,’’ and 
apologizes for any consequent ‘‘errors and deficiencies." The 
list (including W. W. Denslow, mentioned as already deceased) 
comprises thirty names; and these persons have ever since been 
regarded as the founders of the Club, although it is certain that 
not all of them had been members from 1867. There is one notable 
omission from the list; namely, Thomas Hogg, whose name was 
one of those signed to the printed call of December 10, 1867 (as 
already mentioned), and who was certainly a member of the Club 
both before and after the date of the printed list, so that the 
omission of his name was probably an oversight. The addition 
of his name makes the number of “founders” (that is, members 
prior to 1871) thirty-one. When Dr. Timothy Field Allen died 
in 1902, it was supposed by most of the members of the Club that 
he was the last surviving founder; when James Hyatt died in 1904, 
it was stated in Torreya that he was the last. James Sheldon 
Merriam, however, did not die until 1908, and at least two of 
those whose names appear on the list of December, 1870, are still 
living. These are Charles Belknap Gerard, now of Muskogee, 
Oklahoma, and Rev. Dr. Herbert McKenzie Denslow, who has 
