HARPER: RECOLLECTIONS OF NEW YORK 99 



told nothing about ecology, mutation, or Mendelism, and if chromosomes were 

 mentioned their significance was not known. Among Dr. Curtis's students at 

 that time were Percy Wilson, previously mentioned, and two young men who 

 were primarily zoologists, and afterward attained some distinction in that 

 field, namely, R. A. Budington and G. G. Scott. 



At first I thought I would take a minor in zoology, as many botanists did, 

 but after attending one or two lectures, by Prof. E. B. Wilson, in that depart- 

 ment on the floor above, I decided that that was not what I wanted, and I 

 switched to paleobotany. The instructor in that was Dr. Arthur Hollick, on the 

 first floor ; and I was his only student at that time. I also had a minor in mathe- 

 matics, under C. J. Keyser, in one of the old buildings, long since replaced 

 by a modern one ; and I stuck to that for two years, but did not get much out 

 of it that I could use afterward. 



One of my greatest privileges in those days was the use of the botanical 

 library, then in Schermerhorn Hall, adjoining Prof. Underwood's office. It 

 was not large enough then to require the services of a librarian, and Prof. 

 Underwood looked after it, perhaps with some clerical assistance. He was a 

 very active man, and among his other duties he was editing the Torrey Bulle- 

 tin. The following year most of the library was moved to the Garden and 

 combined with the Garden library, where Miss Anna Murray Vail had charge 

 of the combined collection for several years. There the library grew rapidly. 



I had never seen a botanical library before I went to New York, except 

 perhaps for a glimpse at that of the Gray Herbarium, and I soon spent many 

 hours in it, reading back numbers of magazines, and some of the books. In 

 the magazines I found several New England local floras that Miss Mary A. 

 Day had overlooked in her list just published in several numbers of Rhodora, 

 and after I wrote her about them she included them in a supplementary list. 



As my main interest then was in Georgia plants, I did not pay much atten- 

 tion to the local flora. But I soon became acquainted with a few halophytic 

 plants — among them Fitcus vesiculosus, a common brown alga — which were 

 new to me because I had never lived near the coast before, and I also learned 

 some weeds more characteristic of large cities than of small towns. A short 

 trip by ferry from the foot of West 125th St., which I made with Prof. Under- 

 wood a few days after my arrival, took one to Fort Lee, N. J., where there 

 were some interesting rocky woods along the Palisades. 



On visits to friends at Jamaica, Long Island, I saw something of the woods 

 near there, which I studied more intensively about 16 years later. The Hemp- 

 stead Plains, a little farther out on the island, were then practically unknown 

 to botanists, even to some who had crossed them by train on the way to Cold 

 Spring Harbor ; and I did not discover them until 1907. 



Near the north end of Manhattan Island, then reached principally by 

 trolley car, there were considerable areas of practically virgin forest, and I 



