Page transcription
J. Ewan in Dictionary of American History, vol. 1, Scribner's, N.Y., 1976
BOTANY
Most botanical gardens have education programs and carry out public service activities. The larger gardens also have programs for basic research, principally in systematic botany, but also in such ancillary disciplines as ecology, biochemistry, pathology, and plant breeding.
Historically, botanical gardens in America are derived from European models, the earliest of which were established in Pisa and Padua, Italy, in the mid-1500's as collections of medicinally useful plants for study by medical students—reflecting the origin of botanical science as a cornerstone of early medicine. Subsequently, botanical gardens became testing grounds and display areas for the plant treasures taken back from the early exploration of the Americas and Africa. In England, botanical gardens became centers of excellence in landscape architecture, with great collections of diverse plants exhibited not only for their intrinsic value but also as components of a larger design. Most American botanical gardens tend to be based on the English model.
Among the earliest botanical gardens in the United States were John Bartram's Garden, established near Philadelphia in 1728 and now a public park; André Michaux's Garden, established at Charleston, S.C., in 1787, now part of that city; and the Elgin Botanical Garden, established in New York in 1801 where Rockefeller Center now stands. The oldest existing American garden is the Missouri Botanical Garden, founded in St. Louis in 1859. There are approximately 150 botanical gardens in the United States, of which one-third are located in the Northeast and a lesser concentration in the Southwest. Administratively, most botanical gardens are operated by municipalities, universities, or private organizations. A large proportion have evolved as outgrowths of private estates.
Botanical gardens range in size from one acre to several hundred or even thousands of acres. Among the largest are the New York Botanical Garden (including the associated Cary Arboretum), 2,050 acres, and the Missouri Botanical Garden (including the associated arboretum and natural reserve), 1,725 acres—both strongly oriented to research and professional training, and both maintaining large herbaria, libraries, and laboratories. Longwood Gardens, at Kennett Square, Pa., with 1,200 acres, and Callaway Gardens, at Pine Mountain, Ga., with 2,500 acres, are both major display gardens.
In addition to these vast gardens there are a number of very active and significant gardens, including the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Matthaei (University of Michigan) Botanical Garden, Chicago Botanical Garden, Fairchild Tropical Garden (Coral Gables, Fla.), Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (Claremont, Calif.), Los Angeles State and County Arboretum, and University of California Botanic Garden (at Berkeley).
HOWARD S. IRWIN
BOTANY. The plants taken to Europe in the 16th century by René de Laudonnière's expedition to the Florida-Georgia region and by Thomas Harriot from the Roanoke area were reported in John Gerard's Herbal (1597). These and the discoveries of John Tradescant the younger from the vicinity of Yorktown, Va., were included in John Parkinson's Theatrum (1640). The oldest Virginia specimens preserved today were taken by John Banister. His specimens and drawings were published separately by Robert Morison, John Ray, and Leonard Plukenet and, with Virginia specimens and descriptions sent by John Clayton to Johann Gronovius, Carl Linnaeus' associate in Leiden, were enumerated in Flora virginica (1739–43). This was the earliest book expressly devoted to a flora common to the Atlantic coastal plain. The descriptions and drawings of Carolina plants in Mark Catesby's Natural History and important collections made by Pehr Kalm, especially from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with a few specimens from Cadwalader Colden along the Hudson River and John Bartram along Delaware Bay, were the essence of Linnaeus' knowledge of the plants of the eastern United States, as incorporated in his pivotal Species plantarum (1753).
Bartram—a self-educated Quaker farmer, friend of Benjamin Franklin, and founding member of the American Philosophical Society—established the first botanic garden in 1728. He searched from Lake Ontario to the St. Johns River, Fla., and forwarded seeds and specimens to Linnaeus, Gronovius, Johann Dillenius, Catesby, Peter Collinson, and John Fothergill. In company with his son, William, he discovered plants endemic to the southeastern states, including the famed Frankinia: William Bartram's Travels (1791), an important source book for the naturalist today, promptly became a literary classic. Benjamin Smith Barton—physician, professor of materia medica and natural history—illustrated his Elements of Botany (1803), the first botany text published in the United States, largely with William Bartram's drawings. Barton planned a more comprehensive continental flora than André Michaux's and to that end em-
