VOL. XXXV MAY, 1934 No. 413 JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN ELIZABETH GERTRUDE BRITTON MARSHALL A. HOWE MEMORIAL AND RESOLUTION OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL REPORT OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN EXPEDITION—I EDWARD J. ALEXANDER PROFESSIONAL GARDENERS COMPLETE SCIENCE COURSE FORMAN T. MCLEAN NOTES, NEWS, AND COMMENT PUBLISHED FOR THE GARDEN AT LIME AND GREEN STREETS, LANCASTER, PA. THE SCIENCE PRESS PRINTING COMPANY Entered at the post-office in Lancaster, Pa., as second-class matter. Annual subscription $1.00 Single copies 10 cents Free to members of the Garden THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN BOARD OF MANAGERS I. ELECTIVE MANAGERS Until 103$: L. H. BAILEY, THOMAS J. DOLEN, MARSHALL FIELD, MRS. ELON HUNTINGTON HOOKER, KENNETH K. MACKENZIE, JOHN L. MERRILL (Vice-presi­ dent and Treasurer), and H. HOBART PORTER. Until 1036: ARTHUR M. ANDERSON, N. L. BRITTON, HENRY W. DE FOREST (President), CLARENCE LEWIS, E. D. MERRILL (Director and Secretary), HENRY DE LA MONTAGNE, JR. (Assistant Treasurer & Business Manager), and LEWIS RUTHERFURD MORRIS. Until 1937: HENRY DE FOREST BALDWIN (Vice-president), GEORGE S. BREWSTER, CHILDS FRICK, ADOLPH LEWISOHN, HENRY LOCKHART, JR., D. T. MACDOUGAL, and JOSEPH R. SWAN. II. EX-OFFICIO MANAGERS FIORELLO H. LA GUARDIA, Mayor of the City of New York. ROBERT MOSES, Park Commissioner. GEORGE J. RYAN, President of the Board of Education. III. APPOINTIVE MANAGERS A. F. BLAKESLEE, appointed by the Torrey Botanical Club. R. A. HARPER, SAM F. TRELEASE, EDMUND W. SINNOTT, and MARSTON T. BOGERT, appointed by Columbia University. DIRECTOR EMERITUS N. L. BRITTON, PH. D., SC. D., LL. D. GARDEN STAFF E. D. MERRILL, SC. D Director MARSHALL A. HOWE, PH. D., SC. D Assistant Director H. A. GLEASON, PH. D Head Curator JOHN K. SMALL, PH. D., SC. D Chief Research Associate and Curator A. B. STOUT, PH. D Director of the Laboratories FRED J. SEAVER, PH. D., SC. D Curator BERNARD O. DODGE, PH. D Plant Pathologist FORMAN T. MCLEAN, M. F., PH. D Supervisor of Public Education JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, A. M., M. D.. .Bibliographer and Admin. Assistant PERCY WILSON Associate Curator ALBERT C. SMITH, PH. D Associate Curator SARAH H. HARLOW, A. M Librarian H. H. RUSBY, M. D Honorary Curator of the Economic Collections FLEDA GRIFFITH Artist and Photographer ROBERT S. WILLIAMS Research Associate in Bryology E. J. ALEXANDER Assistant Curator and Curator of the Local Herbarium HAROLD N. MOLDENKE, A. M Assistant Curator CLYDE CHANDLER, A. M Technical Assistant ROSALIE WEIKERT Technical Assistant CAROL H. WOODWARD, A. B Editorial Assistant THOMAS H. EVERETT, N. D. HORT Horticulturist HENRY TEUSCHER, HORT. M Dendrologist G. L. WITTROCK, A. M Docent ROBERT HAGELSTEIN Honorary Curator of Myxomycetes E. B. SOUTHWICK, PH. D Custodian of Herbaceous Grounds ETHEL ANSON S. PECKHAM . .Honorary Curator, Iris and Narcissus Collections WALTER S. GROESBECK Clerk and Accountant ARTHUR J. CORBETT Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds JOURNAL OF The New York Botanical Garden VOL. XXXV MAY, 1934 No. 413 ELIZABETH GERTRUDE BRITTON Following soon after the deaths of Doctors Rydberg and Hollick, the scientific staff of The New York Botanical Garden has suffered another severe loss in the passing of Elizabeth Gertrude Britton on February 25. Born in the City of New York, January 9, 1858, she was one of the five daughters of James and Sophie Anne (Comp- ton) Knight. Her Grandfather Knight, of Scotch and Welsh an­ cestry, conducted a furniture factory and a sugar estate in the vicinity of Matanzas, Cuba, and a considerable part of her child­ hood was spent on "The Pearl of the Antilles." In the company of her sisters and her father, wdio felt a keen interest in the flora, fauna, and geology of the island, she took many delightful walks and easily developed a love for living things. Incidentally, in those early years, she acquired a facile command of the Spanish language, which later was to prove of much practical service to her and her future husband in their botanical explorations of Cuba and Porto Rico. As she grew older, she was left for most of the year with her Grandmother Compton in New York to attend the private school conducted by Dr. Benedict. Later she entered the Normal (now Hunter) College, from which she was graduated in 1875, at the early age of seventeen. In October of the same year she was appointed a critic teacher in the Model School of that institution and in 1879 her interest in plants had become so pronounced that we find a record on December 9 of her election to active member­ ship in the Torrey Botanical Club. Miss Knight's first botanical publication was a brief note on "Albinism" in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club for March, 1883. In April, 1883, her title in the staff of the Normal College was changed to Tutor in Natural Science, and in September of that year we find the forerunner of 97 what was destined to be a long series of papers on the North Amer­ ican mosses, entitled "On the fruit of Eustichium norvegicum." Based on fertile material collected by her in Wisconsin, she sup­ plied description and figures of the "fruit" of a moss originally described (supposedly from Norway, but probably from Iceland) in 1827 and meanwhile, for fifty-six years, known only in a sterile condition. On August 27, 1885, Miss Knight was married to Dr. Nathaniel Lord Britton, at that time an Assistant in Geology in Columbia College—a geologist who had already developed a major interest in plants. The partnership of the two young botanists was to develop and intensify the botanical interests of both. Mrs. Britton had begun a special study of mosses five years before her marriage. Afterwards she rather naturally assumed unofficial charge of the moss collections, small at the time, of Co­ lumbia College, and set about to increase them by exchange, pur­ chase, and personal field work. In 1889, there appeared the first of a series of eleven systematic papers under the title of "Contribu­ tions to American bryology." At about this time she wrote numer­ ous reviews and criticisms of a wide range of works for the Bul­ letin of the Torrey Botanical Club and published an enumeration of the ferns collected in South America by Dr. H. H. Rusby. She also announced a proposed handbook on the mosses of northeastern America, which was never published. In 1892, her list of the mosses of West Virginia appeared. The next year, with the aid of generous friends, the moss herbarium of August Jaeger, of Swit­ zerland, "occupying about 90 cubic feet" was acquired and pre­ sented to the herbarium of Columbia College. This contained numerous valuable exsiccati and was a very important addition to the bryological resources of New York and of America. In 1894 Mrs. Britton began a series of eight beautifully illustrated articles under the title "How to study the mosses" in The Observer. These included keys to the local species of selected genera and descrip­ tions of the illustrated species. The periodical in which this series was published was of ephemeral existence and unfortunately the papers were never reprinted as separates. However, taken with the notable "Contributions to American bryology," they sufficed to place Mrs. Britton in command of the bryological field in America. Other Observer articles with alluring special titles followed, such as "The luminous moss" [Schistostega], "The humpbacked elves" 99 ELIZABETH GERTRUDE BRITTON (Photograph taken at her desk at The New York Botanical Garden, June 22, 1902) [Buxbaumia and Webera], "The brownies" [Phascum and Pleu- ridium], "The water nymphs" [Fontinalis and Dichelyma] and "The umbrella mosses" [Splachuum and Tetraptodon], In 77i£ Linnaean Fern Bulletin for April, 1896, Mrs. Britton re­ lated the story of how in 1879, she had found the rare and local Curly Grass Fern (Schizaea pusilla) in Nova Scotia. One of the few specimens collected there by her went to Dr. Asa Gray, of Harvard University, who wrote her that he had seen in Paris the specimens of this rare little fern collected years before by De La Pylaie in Newfoundland, but that he and every one else had sup­ posed that the cited locality was incorrect and that the specimens must have come from New Jersey, where it is of local occurrence in the sand-barren region. She sent a specimen to the Rev. Arthur C. Waghorne, a resident of Newfoundland, and in 1896, he re­ ported its rediscovery on that island. Mrs. Britton's interest in ferns persisted throughout her life, although it was chiefly as a spe­ cialist on mosses that she was known to botanists. In 1897 she published a revision of the North American species of Ophioglos­ sum, the Adder's-tongue ferns. Later, with Miss Alexandrina Taylor, who contributed numerous excellent drawings, she pub­ lished life-histories of the Curly Grass Fern (Schizaea) and of the tropical Vittaria lineata. In April, 1902, Mrs. Britton was one of the prime movers in organizing The Wild Flower Preservation Society of America, with the cooperation of Dr. Frederick V. Coville, of Washington, as President; Mr. Charles Louis Pollard, of Washington, as Secre­ tary ; other managers, besides herself, including Professors Charles E. Bessey, of Nebraska; L. H. Bailey, of Ithaca; Dr. William Trelease, of St. Louis; Dr. C. F. Millspaugh, of Chicago, and Miss Alice Eastwood, of San Francisco. In August of the preceding year, the Misses Olivia and Caroline Phelps Stokes, of New York, had presented to The New York Botanical Garden a fund of $3,000, with the condition that the interest thereon "should always be used for the investigation and preservation of native plants or for bringing the need of such preservation before the public." Also in August of that year (1901) the formation in Boston of a Society for the Protection of Native Plants was announced, with its officers from eastern Massachusetts.