100 T O R R E Y A 



remember seeing Bicuculla Cucullaria there for the first time, in the spring 

 of 1900. Another novelty to me was Claytonia virginica, typically an inhabitant 

 of rich woods, but there found also along the streets, in rich soils. At Riverdale, 

 a little farther north, in the Bronx, were other wooded areas with streets 

 winding through them. In that charming residential community lived E. P. 

 Bicknell, an enthusiastic amateur botanist who worked in a business house 

 downtown, and had astonished the local botanists a few years before by dis- 

 covering previously unrecognized species of Sisyrinchium, Asarum, Sanicula, 

 Scrophularia, and perhaps other genera, practically in his back yard. 



About two weeks after arriving in New York I wrote some of my impres- 

 sions of the city and its botanical activities in a long letter to my life-long 

 friend Clarence H. Knowlton, an amateur botanist of Boston. About 43 years 

 later he came across that letter again and returned it to me, thinking I might 

 like to keep it. And the following quotations from it may be of present interest : 



"Monday, Oct. 2nd, I found my way up to the college grounds. ... I soon 

 met Prof. Underwood, and had a little talk with him, and he introduced me 

 to the other botanists who happened to be around, such as Dr. Curtis, Dr. 

 Howe, Dr. Small, Dr. Rydberg, and two graduate students, Mr. Griffiths, of 

 South Dakota, and Mr. Banker, of this state. Dr. Curtis is tutor in botany. 

 . . . Dr. Howe, who got his Ph.D. last year, is now curator of the herbarium 

 [of Columbia University]. . . . Dr. Small, his predecessor, is curator of the 

 N. Y. Botanical Garden herbarium, which amounts to practically the same 

 thing. . . . 



"Monday afternoon I went out to the Garden, which is at Bronx Park, 

 with Dr. Howe. I met out there Mrs. Britton, Dr. Britton, and Mr. Nash, the 

 agrostologist. . . . The botanical garden covers about 250 acres, but most of 

 it is woods, and very nice and primeval-looking woods, too. Much of it is dark 

 rocky hemlock woods, . . . [On my last visit, in the summer of 1940, I found 

 the hemlock forest considerably the worse for wear, so to speak.] 



"They are building a big museum and greenhouses out there. I will have 

 to go there for my graduate work in botany when the museum is finished, 

 which will be about next month. Most of the herbarium has been moved from 

 here [Columbia University] into the museum building already. 



"Last Tuesday night, Oct. 10th, I attended the first fall meeting of the 

 Torrey Botanical Club, which was held in the library of the College of Phar- 

 macy, on 68th St. There was a great contrast, both in members and surround- 

 ings, between this meeting and that of the New England Botanical Club which 

 I attended in June, . . . 



"The Torrey Club met in a room with bare floor and low ceiling, and not 

 very well lighted. No liveried attendants were there to respond to a press of 

 the button, or take care of hats and coats, and no refreshments were served. 

 But of course the character of the meeting depends less on the surroundings 



