Melville Thurston Cook Archives

July 10, 2020 The Berries Migratory Birds Prefer, Favorite Garden Blogs, Parsley & Shade Trees, Asa Gray, Melville Thurston Cook, Elvin McDonald, Spiranthes parksii, Roy Lancaster, Summer Poetry, The Flower-Powered Garden by Andy Vernon, and Peruvian Black Rose Sickness

Today we celebrate the man who established the science of botany in America. We’ll also learn about the botanist who survived a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness – an incredible story. We celebrate a presentation from 1977 that encouraged, “Take a pill if you will; I say take a plant to cope with everyday…

Rescue Mission Today, in 1949, a 79-year-old botanist, Dr. Melville Thurston Cook, his wife, and their pilot were rescued by an Air Force helicopter after a week in the Alaskan wilderness. Cook reported they survived on 90 dozen eggs after their plane was forced down in the rugged Brooks Mountain range. As luck would have…