294 NATURE SEPTEMBER 2, 1944, VoL. 154 William Hooker termed "a queer fellow" though JOHN TORREY: AMERICAN admitting that "he certainly does contrive to get BOTANIST access to most interesting plants"; of the Hookers themselves, both father and son; of David Douglas By DR. NICHOLAS POLUNIN and Thomas Drummond ; of Major Emory and New College, Oxford Colonel Fremont, who frequently botanized instead of fighting; of William Darlington and Chester o those familiar with the vast and productive Dewey the caricologist; of D. C. Eaton, of Yale; of T western and middle-western regions of the the admirable Engelmann, who for a while practised United States, the realization may come as something medicine, but then found the lure of botanical re· of ·a shock that these spacious lands were not only searches irresistible ; of Tuckerman the lichenologist little developed but also very little known a century and Sullivant the bryologist ; of the Bigelows and ago. A recent book* embraces that very important various LeContes; of.JohnLindley, ofwhose "Natural phase of American history-the detailed exploration System" Torrey published an American edition in and development of the West. In it we learn much 1831 ; of C. C. Parry, who brought such distinction of the coming and going of expeditions, of the trials to western botany, though he was ''one of the quietest· of explorers and administrators, and of the discovery men in the world-he pokes about and turns ·over i of all.manner of new features. The West was still a any collection of plants that may be lying about" country where exploration in the full geographical (according to Torrey, who appeared to agree that sense could be carried out-in contrast to the world this was a good beginning for a botanist); of M. C. to-day which, to be honest, we must admit contains Leavenworth and Charles Wilkins Short ; of Frederick Jew if any major areas remaining to be discovered or Pursh, whom Torrey disliked as a man and (as is ·even primarily surveyed--and it was still very much unfortunately common especially in a youthful a land of wild Indians and all manner of dangers accordingly underestimated as a botanist; .both known and unforeseen. Much the same was of Edwm .James, of Long's famous expedition in the true, in lesser degree, of the Rocky Mountains and Rocky Mountains ; of Sir .John Richardson and the many tracts lying nearer to the eastern and southern peculiar R<:tfinesque ; and, most notable of all, of the fringes of civilization. great Asa Gray, whose chief teacher and 'spiritual . But very period of these explorations (well on father' Torrey clearly was. We also learn much of m the mneteenth century) was one of great scientific the American learned societies of that day and this­ awakening and deve_lopment; and so, fortunately, including the Smithsonian Institution, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of saw of . geographical exposition W1th the SClentific illvestigatwn which is the real and Sciences at W.tshington, D.C., and the Lyceum of none the less fascin<tting work of the explorer of Natural History of New York with its successor the to-day. New York Academy of Sciences. The author of Torrey's biography has obviously to subject of this biography, the expeditiOns brought ill plant collections in consider­ been at great pains to rout out all manner of data able number and variety, which led to his being the and evidence, bobh published and unpublished. Never· first to describe the flora of many areas that had theless the resulting publication is not without blern· ishes--as, for example, a fair quota of misprints and previously. unknown botanically. At first the recogmtwn ofthe calls of botany needed activating ambiguities, the rather loose literary style and by the instruction and dispatch of collectors· but apparent lack of expert editing, and the inclusion of in time it seemed to proceed almost automatically. such a welter of fact and seemingly minor detail that Indeed, the reader might be excused if in a fit of the result is at times confusing. Moreover, where enthusiasm, he were to conclude that account of s? much space is given to the description of expedi­ the botanical investigation which proceeded in the tiOns and the routes they took, it is surprising not to find more maps. The characters. are also very States in the days. of .John Torrey gave a very faxr picture also of the history of American explora­ numerous, coming and going so that the central one tion in those momentous times. is apt to be swamped, and no very clear picture of Torrey the botanist was born in 1796 in New York, .John Torrey, the man, emerges. However, we are of a New England father of British ancestry, and given here and there tantalizing glimpses of the real mther lovable being--as, for example, died early in. in seventy-seventh year. Though a physiCian by traillmg and to a considerable m extracts from his person<tl letters and in the anecdote about the child .John who "considered extent a by he was practically always a .botamst by choice. Botany it was that it a great h3.rdship to be sent after dark into the brought hrm fame, and, through him, made great the country ..." although by day he loved the wild name. His long and active life encompassed those of tracts beyond the sm<:tll heart of contemporary many botanists, .whom he helped and en­ New York. ?ouraged ill his own country and corresponded with In short, the book is not easy reading ; but the theme is intensely interesting. For Torrey lived in Ill- other of. the world-so that the story of his one of the most vigorous phases of American history, work and trmes IS punctuated with their names and contains long extracts from their correspondence. a history which is seen in this biography from a new We learn much of Amos Eaton, "the first great or at least unhackneyed angle--that of a pioneer in teacher of natural history in America"; of the taxonomic and phytogeographical research whose scholarly mycologist Schweinitz (a prominent clergy­ experiences should prove valuable to students, man like the pioneering G. H. E. Muhlenberg, "the botanical or otherwise, of the period or of that noble father of American botany"); of Nuttall, whom Sir and fundamental science. For fundamental it is, in that taxonomy (most profitably with the background • John Torrey: a Story of North American Botany. By Andrew of its geographical offshoot) deals with the delimita­ Denny Rodgers, III. Pp. x +352. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer­ tion and identification, and where necessary the sity Press; London : Oxford University Press, 1942.) 3. 75 dollars or 261. net. description and classification, of biological entities of © 1944 Nature Publishing Group No. 3905, SEPTEMBER 2, 1944 NATURE 295 innumerable sorts and sizes, and little enough 'awaken a taste and kindle a zeal that could be botanical or zoological or other connected scientific extinguished only with the pupil's life'. How much work of a lasting nature can be accomplished without greater in our scientifically enlightened days are the proper knowledge of what the entities concerned data and chances of the educator, and how vitally are. important his task ! Torrey's botanical publications began in his early The effect which Torrey has had on botanical twenties and extended, as those of so many devoted knowledge and institutions in America can scarcely botanists have done, over more than half a century be over-emphasized. His name is commemorated in and until past the time of his death. In size and a 'unique' genus of the Coniferre, in numerous species importance his papers and books grew through the of vascular plants, in a noble peak i.t;t the Rocky first volume of his "Flora of the Northern and Middle Mountains, and in the splendid Torrey Botanical Sections of the United States" (1824), then his monu­ Club ; his herbarium exertions "representing a deal mental two-volume "Flora of the State of New York" of back-ache" went far towards starting two of the (1843) and hi3 joint work with Asa Gray on the greatest herbaria of the world, namely, the United "Flora of North America" (1838--43), which was the States National Herbarium and the Herbarium of most searching and authoritative treatment of North the New York Botanical Garden. Essentially an American plants up to that time. Most of the American botanist, finding more than enough to do expedition reports followed, though often in intervals within the confines of his own sub-continent, Torrey between work at other subjects. was content to describe rather than to classify, to Torrey lived ir the days when, at least in the New investigate rather than to theorize-wisely leaving to World, a man of science could easily be a 'professor' others, whom he knew would come, the generalization (the title often meaning less in America than in for which he realized the time to be unripe. Europe) of different subjects at different times, or Although essentially a practical man, Torrey was even of different subjects at the same time ; and in to a considerable extent a 'cabinet' botanist, though fact Torrey was, as a young man, professor of living in the days when such were needed. He did chemistry and mineralogy at West Point, and later not experience the thrills and adventures of the actual for many years professor of chemistry at Princeton explorers whose results he worked out so tirelessly and at the same time profes'sor of botany and and meticulously. His were rather the thrills and chemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons adventures of research-the excitement of the micro­ of New York (part of what is now Columbia Univer­ scope and of testing the validity of speculations-the sity), where he had graduated.