Ed. Note: In art, as in life, the orchid has enjoyed many decades of popularity throughout the world. But some might be surprised to find that these “exotic” flowers were en vogue with the horticultural set well before the 20th century made their cultivation rote. Even in the 1800s—and as far back as Charles Darwin’s investigation of his eponymous star orchid—there was a fervent interest in these elegant blooms.
Andrew Tschinkel, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Digital Imaging Technician, gives us a glimpse into the orchid’s illustrated past.
Mertz Digital, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s online collection, has just added several vintage nursery catalogs from the firm of Lager & Hurrell. The firm of Lager & Hurrell was established in 1896 in Summit, New Jersey and was, for decades, the largest commercial producer and distributor of orchid plants in the Americas.
John E. Lager (1861–1937), who founded Lager & Hurrell in 1896, was a legendary orchid hunter whose exploits took him to the most remote jungles of the world in a life long quest for extraordinary and beautiful orchid specimens. He was the subject of a 1933 TIME magazine profile for discovering a specimen that the writer described as “the world’s rarest orchid,” the pure white Cattleya Gigas Alba, sold by Lager & Hurrell to the Baron Firmen Lambeau of Belgium for the then astronomical price of $10,000! [Potentially $180,000 by modern estimates.]
Who 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.
Joyce H. Newman holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden and has been a Tour Guide for over seven years. She is the former editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org.
A fascinating showcase of rare, stunningly illustrated books—dating from medieval and Renaissance times—is now open to the public in the Rondina and LoFaro Gallery at the Mertz Library.
Dozens of amazing works on display, called “Herbals,” contain some of the earliest ever recorded descriptions of plants in Western civilization, written by European botanists, physicians, historians, and clergy. Exhibitions Coordinator Mia D’Avanza explains how the exhibit was first conceived more than two years ago.
“There is a curatorial team from the Library that changes with each show, and often we choose a knowledgeable curator from outside the Garden who is an expert in the subject of that exhibition…. Our curator for this show, Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, an art historian at Italy’s University of Pisa, advised us as we chose works from the Library’s collection and described their significance.”
One of the locks of the Panama Canal, under construction in 1913, eight years before the Mulford Expedition.
Week two of Henry Hurd Rusby‘s Mulford Expedition sees the Santa Elisa passing through the Panama Canal (see Week One). At the time of this writing, the Canal has been open for less than seven years, and as we read, construction is ongoing. The Canal’s most profound immediate effect is a quicker and safer journey between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A voyage from New York to San Francisco saves over 7,800 miles and the ship avoids navigating the hazardous Drake Passage and Cape Horn.
Dr. Rusby mentions the ceremony of the Court of Neptune, also known as the Line-crossing Ceremony, whereby a commemoration of a sailor’s first crossing of the equator is performed. This ceremony is also performed for passenger’s entertainment aboard civilian ocean liners such as the Santa Elisa. Few details are given by Dr. Rusby, but the ceremony has its colorful characters, including the King of Neptune and Davy Jones.
In 1921, when Henry Hurd Rusby was 65 years old, he embarked on his last field trip to South America as the Director of the Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Basin. Professor of Botany and Materia Medica, and Dean of the College of Pharmacy at Columbia University, Rusby had much experience exploring in South America. The goal of the Mulford Biological Expedition was the discovery of plants with possible pharmaceutical properties.
Ed. note: Getting a heads-up from the folks in the LuEsther T. Mertz library is always a treat, if only because we never know what kind of surprise they’re going to pass along. Often it’s an interesting bit of history in the form of an old landscaping book, or a quirky tome on classical botany. This time around, however, the history in question is far more visual. Library Director Susan Fraser was kind enough to explain the how and when of the colorful collection that recently fell into their laps.
The Mertz Library recently received a collection of research material from the estate of J. Louise Mastrantonio, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon and California from 1961 through 1986. After retiring, she began researching the history of the American nursery industry and compiled a collection of artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th century. In time, she began writing a book about the nursery trade, though she died before completing it.
This collection came to the LuEsther T. Mertz Library as a bequest from Mastrantonio’s estate, and includes nursery and seed trade catalogs, seed packets, postcards, advertising art, and wooden seed display boxes (known as commission boxes). Among the literature included are books, agriculture newspapers, and photographs–including 10 stereoscope images.
Because the Mertz Library is open to the public, we serve a wide variety of patrons, from second graders learning the many parts of a flower, to NYBG scientists conducting rigorous botanical research. Field Guide to the Street Trees of New York City lands squarely in the middle of that spectrum. Serving as a focused complement to Leslie Day’s previous work, Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City, this beautifully illustrated and photo-heavy book is full of helpful information for anyone who has ever wondered what kinds of trees shade the city.
As a thorough guide, the book even provides the addresses of places in each of the five boroughs where you can view a live example of each profiled tree. I grabbed it off of the shelf with the idea of identifying a large tree I’d seen at the top of Marcus Garvey Park, near the historic Fire Tower; I was quickly able to identify the tree I’d seen as the London Plane (Platanus x acerifolia), NYC’s most common tree and a regular at the NYBG. You’ll know it by its large, spiked “seed balls” and almost mottled bark.
While the NYBG‘s Library is home to a wealth of rare botanical texts, we occasionally come into possession of something which explores taxonomy on a much broader level. Loosely translated from Latin, The New History of Plants, Animals and Minerals ofMexico is one such example, diving into seventeenth-century zoological studies with a certain flair.
Happy Flag Day, everyone! Today marks the 235th anniversary of our star-spangled banner’s adoption, recognized each year on the 14th of June with a quiet “hurrah!” before the Fourth of July fireworks. And nearly a century ago, this was a momentous day at the Garden.
Our own flags were first raised on a sunny Saturday in 1917, and while it was during the height of World War I, Bronx residents still took the time to gather in celebration. In the midst of so much grim news from Europe, NYBG staff had pulled together to keep spirits high; the raising of three flag poles gifted to us on June 16 of that year (it’s easier on the weekend) gave the Garden an excuse to party–with parades, poetry, and at least a few swords.
It’s not often that something so simple as a flag raising gets its own marching band treatment these days, but hey, John Philip Sousa was a much bigger deal back then. The gifts–from one Edward D. Adams, NYBG board member–were met with a crowd of several hundred local school children, three separate Boy Scout troops (and their band), then Bronx Borough President Douglas Mathewson, and many more.
Not many can recall the Liverpool Botanic Gardens. Though its glasshouse and extensive collection of orchids saw thousands of visitors pass through in the early decades of their existence, the middle years of the twentieth century were not kind. After over a century of high regard, the 1930s and ’40s brought the second World War, along with an errant German bomb that destroyed much of the botanic glasshouse and its contents. A decade-long effort to rebuild the architecture on a post-war budget proved shoddy, and within 15 years the replacement structure had fallen into disrepair. By the rapid decline of the 1970s, the glasshouse’s rotting wooden framework and broken glass panes had become emblematic of Liverpool’s floundering economy.
The Gardens closed without ceremony in 1984. With an unresolved labor dispute muddying the ground between the city council and the botanical workforce, Liverpool’s decision to shutter the space was labeled an act of political spite. What remained of the LBG’s extensive plant collection–now orphaned–was moved off-grounds. And, to some, the untold beauty and presence of a world-renowned paradise of exotic plants was lost to time.
Mertz Digital, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s online collection, has just added several vintage nursery catalogs from the firm of Lager & Hurrell. The firm of Lager & Hurrell was established in 1896 in Summit, New Jersey and was, for decades, the largest commercial producer and distributor of orchid plants in the Americas.
