102 T O R R E Y A 



important appeared on the scene in the next year or two, but this narrative 

 will be confined to the 19th century. There was probably no other place in 

 the western hemisphere, with the possible exception of Boston and Washing- 

 ton, where so many botanists were concentrated, and knowing them was a 

 wonderful opportunity for a beginner like myself. That was a time of great 

 botanical activity, which bore abundant fruit in the next few years. 



The American botanical journals of those days, as I recall them, were 

 the Torrey Bulletin, founded in 1870 (while Dr. Torrey was still living) ; the 

 Botanical Gazette, started as the Botanical Bulletin by the Coulter brothers a 

 few years later; the Fern 'Bulletin, published by Willard N. Clute; the Asa- 

 Gray Bulletin, which had a brief existence in the 90's, and was superseded or 

 absorbed by the Plant JJ'orld, which in turn changed its form and manage- 

 ment two or three times, and was succeeded by Ecology; the Bulletin of the 

 Nezv York Botanical Garden, an official publication or "house organ," started 

 in 1895 ; Rhodora, the journal of the New England Botanical Club, started in 

 1899; and the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, started in 1900. 

 There were also two or three in the far West, and a few personal organs, 

 besides some annual publications like that of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 

 some appearing at irregular intervals, like the Contributions from the V. S. 

 National Herbarium, and several magazines and scientific society proceedings 

 that published important botanical papers but were not confined to botany. 



It may be appropriate to record here an almost forgotten bit of local 

 botanical history. At a meeting of the Torrey Club, it must have been some 

 time in 1900, Prof. Underwood observed that the name "Bulletin of the Torrey 

 Botanical Club" was too long and unwieldy, and suggested that it be changed 

 to "Torreya." Although he was popular and influential, and was then editor 

 of the Bulletin, his suggestion was received without enthusiasm, and I have 

 found no mention of it in the published proceedings of the Club. But it evi- 

 dently bore fruit, for at the beginning of 1901 the new magazine Torreya 

 was launched, intended to carry articles shorter and more popular and of 

 more local interest than the more technical ones in the Bulletin, which had a 

 world-wide circulation. In fact it was much like the Bulletin had been in 

 its first decade or two. It served its purpose well, and for twenty years it re- 

 ceived enough manuscripts to publish an issue every month. Then it changed 

 to a bi-monthly. 



When I went to Xew York my first plan for research was simply to write 

 a flora of Georgia, which was then a comparatively unworked field. But in 

 the magazines I saw at Columbia I found the emerging science of ecology- 

 represented by a few articles in which the plants of various regions were 



all Xew Yorkers) whose dates of birth and death are known, the average longevity was 

 71.5 years, which seems to be about the average for scientists in general. But nine who 

 are still living average 76 years old at this time. 



