EDWARD PALMER 341 



EDWAED PALMEE 1 



By WILLIAM EDWIN SAFFORD 



Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, 

 .And palmers for to seken straunge strondes. 



Chaucer, Gen. Prol. to Canterbury Tales. 



EDWAED PALMEE is a man well named. A palmer of the olden 

 time was one who had traveled to the Holy Land in fulfilment 

 of a vow, and brought back with him a palm branch to be placed on 

 the altar of his parish church. Afterwards the name was applied to 

 pilgrims who traveled unceasingly from land to land, under a perpetual 

 vow of poverty and celibacy. 



This is what our Palmer has done. From the age of early man- 

 hood until now, the winter of his life, never content to remain inactive 

 even for a short period, he has set out upon one pilgrimage after an- 

 other, bringing back many palm branches and other strange and beauti- 

 ful products of distant climes, reverently to lay them on the altar of 

 science. 



He is an Englishman by birth, born January 12, 1821, at Hockwold 

 cum Wilton, near Brandon, in the county of Norfolk. His father was 

 a professional florist and horticulturist; so that from his earliest child- 

 hood his associations have been with flowers and shrubs and trees. 

 When a youth of eighteen he came to America and settled at Cleveland, 

 Ohio. There it was his privilege to meet with Dr. Jared 0. Kirtland, 

 one of the most eminent and respected scientific men of his day, in 

 whom there was combined a peculiar personal charm and magnetism 

 with great zeal for the study of nature. 



Dr. Kirtland was not only an accomplished botanist, but a practical 

 horticulturist as well, and a man whose greatest pleasure it was to 

 gather young people about him and instill into them a love for natural 

 history. He was one of the earliest members of the American Academy 

 of Sciences, and in connection with the Geological Survey of Ohio made 

 extensive collections of plants and animals of that state. This kind 

 and learned man found a willing disciple in young Palmer, whom he 

 invited to his home and, inspiring him with the display of his zoological 

 collections and herbarium, taught him to prepare bird skins and to dry 

 and press plants, thus laying the foundation for his future career. 



1 A biographical sketch read at a meeting of the Botanical Society of Wash- 

 ington, D. C, on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Dr. Palmer's birth. 



