Por releese --ifternoon td^vgts Tuesday, Dece'^ber 28, 1936. 



Valuable bot/:.nical LiBEii^Y inches s:,{it:isoiiiaij 



TWENTY-TWO YEARS ilETER ?ES3ESTATI0N . 

 Tlie most vrju^bie "b'tanic^l ^ift ever -^g.de to the Smithsonian has j-ast 

 "■:--^o^:'3d the Institution, arrivine-, for a curious reason, t'^cnt 7--two years 

 after its presentation. This is the botanical library of Ca-ctain John Donnell 

 Smith of Baltimore, consictin™ of some 1600 carefully selected and beautifully 

 bound volumes. 



Qaritain Smith, who at the ase of 97 is the most venerable of American 

 botanists, presented his library and also his Dlant collection of more than 

 100,000 specimens to the Smithsonian in 1905, when he was 75, with the under- 

 standln,? that be would retain them for his own studies as Ion.? as he wished. 

 Thoui-h still active, Gaotain Smith desires to have his books installed at the 

 present time in the Smithsonian, where they will be koiot as a unit library. 

 Each volume bears a distinctive r)l^te with his name. 



The library includes boots which are aat duolicated in Washinirton, and 

 at least one r^are work of which there is no other coioy i^ the United States. 

 Th.is is a voli"'me by G-omez Orte^^a, mblished at Lladrid, in 1797, which con- 

 tains the first -published descri-otions of many imoorbant Mexican plants. An 

 American botanist once made a tyoewritten coDy of this book's many uafres , in 

 order to have tne descritjtions immiCdiately at hand. 



The library is -oarticularly rich in works describing' tr^Toical American 

 plants, esToecially those of Central America, a field in which Gaotain Smith 

 has specialized. Many of the volumes were sent to England for binding?. In 

 1908 the Smithsonian published a catalo^'ue of tlie entire library, co-mniled 



