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Morning Eye Candy: Colorburst

Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on July 5 2013, by Matt Newman

It’s July 5 and the fireworks are done with. Hopefully your eyes have readjusted to things that aren’t bursting into rainbow-colored sparks, and all those hot dogs will work themselves off in the course of the day. Anyway, I figured you could use some daylilies—because who doesn’t want more things that go ‘boom,’ figuratively speaking?

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Morning Eye Candy: Rockets’ Red Glare

Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on July 4 2013, by Matt Newman

Francis Scott Key may never have penned “the rockets’ pink glare,” but if he had, he’d be covered on the imagery front. Happy Independence Day, everyone! The NYBG is open today, so don’t hesitate to join us for your pre-fireworks adventures.

Happy 4th!

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Will the Real Elizabeth Blackwell Please Stand Up?

Posted in Around the Garden, Exhibitions, From the Library, People on July 1 2013, by Joyce Newman

Curious Herbal FrontispieceWho is Elizabeth Blackwell? If you Google the name, you’ll see that in 1849 she was the first woman to receive a U.S. medical degree, opening the profession to women. But look again. An Englishwoman with the same name was also the first woman to create the illustrated medical text, A Curious Herbal (at right), which was published in 1737, and she too had a huge impact on the practice of medicine.

The extraordinary story of this talented Englishwoman and botanical artist, Elizabeth Blackwell (c. 1700-1758), is part of the Herbals exhibit now on display in the Rondina and LoFaro Gallery of the NYBG’s Mertz Library.

Blackwell’s illustrations deeply impressed many English physicians, botanists, and apothecaries in mid-18th century London where the tradition of the herbal endured longer than it did on the continent. In England the herbals were a close second to the Bible in popularity. And Blackwell’s work was not only unprecedented for a woman of her time, but revealed the grim circumstances she faced as a wife and mother.

Her free-wheeling husband, Alexander, who practiced as a physician, was in debtor’s prison due to a failed, shady business operation. So Elizabeth was desperate to earn money to support her young child and to get him released.

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The Diary of H.H. Rusby: The Bolivian Climb

Posted in Around the Garden, Science on June 29 2013, by Anthony Kirchgessner

Mountainous Bolivia, near La Paz
Mountainous Bolivia, near La Paz

Altitude and cold weather continue to plague Rusby, who decides to travel ahead to warmer climes, but must pass through even higher and colder mountains to do so. He is helped along the way by the Guggenheim mining company, providing him with many comforts in the inhospitable mountains. But the survival of the expedition is in jeopardy, as the supplies have not yet arrived.

OFFICIAL DIARY of the MULFORD BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF THE AMAZON BASIN

H. H. RUSBY, DIRECTOR

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1921

This has been a very important day for us. I rose after a night of much discomfort from my cold and remained in the house all day. I wrote a long letter home and partially straightened out my accounts and brought my journal up to date. We have today made our final arrangements about our journey from here to the Boopi, and it appears that there are some unpleasant complications which will render this transaction less favorable than we had anticipated. Mr. MacCreagh had virtually committed himself to send our cargo by a contractor over a different route than the favorable one provided by the Guggenheim Company. It now transpires that we must carry out this arrangement, sending most of our freight directly by mule to Canamina, at a cost of about $3.50 American money per hundred pounds, and going ourselves with a small outfit by way of Eucalyptus and Pongo.

The freight did not arrive in time for any work at repacking today.

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