A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT 

 OF BOTANY IN NEW YORK CITY.* 



By Henry H. Rusby.' 



It is my purpose this afternoon to direct your attention to the 

 influences whose workings have brought into existence the pres- 

 ent highly satisfactory organization of botanical work in this city. 

 Among many minor elements, three stand out prominently, and 

 call for our special attention. They are: (i) local botanical 

 gardens, including the present one, and the persons who have 

 been associated in their management ; (2) the botanical depart- 

 ment of Columbia College ; (3) the Torrey Botanical Club. 



Were we to commence with the very earliest botanical history 

 of our city, we should be carried back to a time when, as an im- 

 portant seaport in a new world, it was made the temporary head- 

 quarters of visiting botanists, who accumulated here their collec- 

 tions, maintaining some of them in a living condition, until the" 

 arrival of a convenient opportunity for dispatching them to the 

 mother countries. Such occurrences as these, exerting little in- 

 fluence in the permanent development of a botanical center here, 

 occupy noplace in to-day's consideration. Developmental work 

 of the kind that concerns us was active, previous to the close of 

 the 1 8th century, at some points farther south, especially at Phila- 

 delphia, and in New England, but not at New York. 



The first important event here was the work of Doctor, after- 

 ward Governor, Cadwallader Colden and his daughter Jane, who, 

 near the middle of the 18th century, conducted their studies with 

 the aid of a small botanical garden at their home, near Newburgh. 



* An address delivered before the Torrey Botanical Club at a special meeting held 

 on May 23, 1906, in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the commencement 

 of work in the development of the New York Botanical Garden. 



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