TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB REMINISCENCES 
By ARTHUR HOLLICK 
Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 
If I remember correctly, it was in 1876 or 1877 that Doctor 
Britton and I joined the Torrey Botanical Club. We were class- 
mates in the Columbia College School of Mines at the time and 
had collected plants together in a more or less desultory way. 
Each of us had a small local herbarium and we did the best we 
could to identify and name our specimens with the aid of Gray’s 
Manual. The only instruction we received in botany was one 
lecture a week during one term, by Professor Newberry, who also 
lectured on zoólogy, paleontology and geology. Practically, he 
was professor of "natural history." There was no laboratory 
work of any kind and we were left entirely to our own devices so 
far as assistance in securing botanical information or knowledge 
was concerned. 
We had heard vague rumors to the effect that somewhere in 
the recesses of the old college buildings an herbarium was housed, 
and after making several inquiries we finally located it, and found 
Mr. P. V. Leroy in charge as curator. I believe his salary was 
paid by Mr. John J. Crooke and not by Columbia. Certainly 
Columbia made no use of the herbarium. The Torrey Botanical 
Club met there and in this way we became acquainted with some 
of the members and soon ventured to apply for admission. 
I shall never forget the first meeting I attended. I felt that 
I was under indictment for the crime of being a young man. There 
were no young botanists in those days. Many of those whose 
acquaintance I made at these early meetings were as old as I am 
now and others were older, and that was forty years ago. I recall 
particularly Alphonso Wood, William H. Leggett, P. V. Leroy, 
O. R. Willis, Bowers, Ruger, and several others. I never met Dr. 
Torrey, of course, as he died in 1873. Мо woman had yet been 
elected to membership in the Club. Any such innovation would 
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