January 29, 2012
From the Library: Britton in the Field


Here is Nathaniel Lord Britton, the first Director-in-Chief of The New York Botanical Garden, in a photograph taken in February 1905, in the Bahamas.

Britton was accompanied on this expedition by his wife Elizabeth Britton and Marshall Howe. They returned with about ten thousand specimens, as reported in the Notes, News and Comment section of the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, March 1905, page 52.

Charles Millspaugh, Britton’s co-author on The Bahama Flora (1920), was also on the trip.

Source: The New York Botanical Garden’s historical photographs, in the collections of The LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

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Filed under: Nathaniel Lord Britton Elizabeth Britton The LuEsther T. Mertz Library The New York Botanical Garden Bahamas Flora Black and White Photographs Historical Photographs New York City submission 
November 4, 2011
Did you know that Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife, Elizabeth Knight, used the Kew Gardens in London as their inspiration for The New York Botanical Garden? 

Did you know that Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife, Elizabeth Knight, used the Kew Gardens in London as their inspiration for The New York Botanical Garden? 

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Filed under: Kew Gardens London Nathaniel Lord Britton Elizabeth Knight The New York Botanical Garden 
December 23, 2010
A view of the Botanical Garden of the State of New York. What’s that you say? The Botanical Garden of the State of New York? Well, according to the founder of The New York Botanical Garden, Nathaniel Lord Britton writing in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club (on jstor, if you aren’t able to access the link, click here): In the year 1801 Dr. David Hosack, then professor of botany and materia medica in Columbia College, purchased twenty acres of ground in New York city, and called it the Elgin Botanic Garden; in this tract he accumulate, with great labor during the next ten years, a very large and valuable collection of plants. The institution was transferred to the State of New York, through an act of the Legislature, in 1810, and was then known as the Botanic Garden of the State of New York. It was subsequently granted to Columbia College. Funds for its maintenance were not provided, however, and it was ultimately abandoned. Another little piece of New York City’s botanical history rediscovered. Fascinating stuff. Photo from the Digital Gallery of the New York Public Library.

A view of the Botanical Garden of the State of New York. What’s that you say? The Botanical Garden of the State of New York? Well, according to the founder of The New York Botanical Garden, Nathaniel Lord Britton writing in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club (on jstor, if you aren’t able to access the link, click here):

In the year 1801 Dr. David Hosack, then professor of botany and materia medica in Columbia College, purchased twenty acres of ground in New York city, and called it the Elgin Botanic Garden; in this tract he accumulate, with great labor during the next ten years, a very large and valuable collection of plants. The institution was transferred to the State of New York, through an act of the Legislature, in 1810, and was then known as the Botanic Garden of the State of New York. It was subsequently granted to Columbia College. Funds for its maintenance were not provided, however, and it was ultimately abandoned.

Another little piece of New York City’s botanical history rediscovered. Fascinating stuff.

Photo from the Digital Gallery of the New York Public Library.

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Filed under: The New York Botanical Garden The Botanical Garden of the State of New York The New York Public Library Nathaniel Lord Britton Columbia University New York City History 
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