Seeds of Discovery: Frederick Pursh and the Flora Americana Legacy

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Flora Americana The English botanist Aylmer Lambert wrote to his peer, and the President of the Linnean Society, Sir James Edward Smith. Lambert was giving Smith a heads up that Frederick Pursh’s Flora Americana was published. Five years earlier, Frederick had been working for Benjamin Smith Barton in America. Barton was supposed to process the…

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John and Harvey Ruth: Botanists Exploring Wyker’s Island in 1887

John and Harvey Ruth thumbnail image

Fall on Wyker’s Island  On this day in 1887, the botanists John and Harvey Ruth made a trip to Wyker’s Island to collect fall flora. Wyker’s Island is now known as Lynn Island, in the Delaware River, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Ruth’s rowed their own boat to the island on this day in 1887, where…

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