Internet Archive's in-browser bookreader "theater" requires JavaScript to be enabled. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature.

Francis Boott and John Torrey correspondence, 1821-1851

by: Boott, Francis,1792-1863

Publication date: 1821

Collection: nybgtorrey; biodiversity; NY_Botanical_Garden

Contributor: New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library

Language: English

John Torrey Papers (PP), Archives, The New York Botanical Garden

Correspondence from Francis Boott to John Torrey, spanning 1821-1851, discussing botanical matters and the activites of mutual friends and acquaintances. Boott is passionately interested in the genus Carex and several letter consist of lists of Carex species for which he lacks specimens or has questions. Some letters accompany the regular shipments of plant specimens that flow between Boott, Torrey, and their associates, particularly Hooker in Glasgow. Others serve as informal introductions for friends of Boott who also wish to begin a correspondence with Torrey. Here and there Boott touches on more personal matters, such as a series of deaths among friends and relatives in 1834, and his opinion of the institution of slavery in America ("I pity your forlorn state as to slavery and cannot imagine how you are to escape the curse"). Obsolete and unresolved plant names mentioned include Aster gracilis, Aster paludosus, Carex alpestris, Carex ampullacea, Carex aristata, Carex barrattii, Carex collecta, Carex commutata, Carex cristata, Carex fraseri, Carex halseyi, Carex hitchcockii, Carex ovata, Carex pulla, Carex scirpoides, Carex setacea, Carex washingtonia, Carex wormskioldiana, and Trifolium flexuosum

Digitized under grant #PW-234827-16 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)

Finding aid for the John Torrey papers available from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, New York Botanical Garden and online

Abstract: Correspondence from Francis Boott to John Torrey, spanning 1821-1851, discussing botanical matters and the activites of mutual friends and acquaintances. Boott is passionately interested in the genus Carex and several letter consist of lists of Carex species for which he lacks specimens or has questions. Some letters accompany the regular shipments of plant specimens that flow between Boott, Torrey, and their associates, particularly Hooker in Glasgow. Others serve as informal introductions for friends of Boott who also wish to begin a correspondence with Torrey. Here and there Boott touches on more personal matters, such as a series of deaths among friends and relatives in 1834, and his opinion of the institution of slavery in America ("I pity your forlorn state as to slavery and cannot imagine how you are to escape the curse"). Obsolete and unresolved plant names mentioned include Aster gracilis, Aster paludosus, Carex alpestris, Carex ampullacea, Carex aristata, Carex barrattii, Carex collecta, Carex commutata, Carex cristata, Carex fraseri, Carex halseyi, Carex hitchcockii, Carex ovata, Carex pulla, Carex scirpoides, Carex setacea, Carex washingtonia, Carex wormskioldiana, and Trifolium flexuosum.