The Historical Flora of New York City: Implications for Conservation Action

She came to NYBG in July 2018 following a distinguished 34-year career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked as a curator and transitioned from research and scholarship to governance and administration, most recently serving since 2009 as Deputy Director, leading visitor-focused, mission-aligned initiatives for the institution during a transformational period in Museum’s history. At NYBG, Dr. Barratt brings her focus to the care and presentation of the living collections: more than one million plants among spectacular display gardens and award-winning architecture across the 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape. Her track record for enhancing visitor engagement matches the Garden’s reputation for groundbreaking scientific research and conservation programs; creative educational programs connecting art to science and human life to living collections, with enhanced offerings from pre-K through post-graduate studies; and vibrant exhibition and public programs that serve ever-growing and diverse audiences.

Dr. Boom’s principal responsibility is to provide executive leadership for NYBG’s Center for Conservation Strategy. For the past four decades, he has studied and published on plants in the United States and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean; for the past decade, his geographic and research focus has been on conservation in Cuba. He has held various administrative posts in the Science and Development divisions at NYBG, including that of Director of Science Development. Dr. Boom leads the effort at NYBG to determine the degree of endangerment of plant species throughout the Americas using a rapid assessment protocol developed at NYBG. Closer to home, he leads a project to help conserve North American Ash tree species, which are threatened with devastation due to an invasive beetle, the Emerald Ash Borer. He directs the New York City EcoFlora project, a citizen-science research initiative that connects urban people and nature and that provides the first dynamic, freely accessible online database about the native and naturalized plant species and their ecological partners in NYC. Dr. Boom received his Ph.D. from The Graduate Center of The City University of New York.

For two centuries, intense urbanization has had devastating consequences for the biodiversity of New York City. Botanical gardens, museums, universities, and other civic institutions have responded to these changes with varied intensity, goals, and success. In this keynote address, Dr. Victoria Johnson, author of 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist American Eden, discusses important moments in the history of New York’s flora: the founding in 1801 of the nation’s first public botanical garden on farmland now home to Rockefeller Center, the creation of Central Park and The New York Botanical Garden, rising concern in the 20^th century about the loss of biodiversity, and finally the current and future roles of our civic institutions in plant conservation.

Victoria Johnson is associate professor of Urban Policy & Planning at Hunter College. She earned an B.A. in philosophy from Yale in 1991 and a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia in 2002. Her latest book, American Eden, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018, a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award in Nonfiction, a finalist for the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography, and a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in history.

Sanderson received his Ph.D. in ecology (emphasis in ecosystem and landscape ecology) from the University of California, Davis, in 1998, while studying with Dr. Susan Ustin. Starting at WCS in 1998, he established the “Landscape Ecology and Geographic Analysis” program to bring landscape thinking and geographic analysis tools into the conservation practices of the WCS.

Two hundred years ago, John Torrey published the first inventory of New York City’s plants. Today, ecological shifts like climate change and deer herbivory present increasing threats to this flora. In order to protect our plant communities and inform future conservation strategies, it is vital that we understand how our flora has changed, recognize which species have likely been lost and which continue to persist, and assess what habitats are most at risk. NYC Parks Field Scientist, Clara Holmes, discusses these themes and ways both professional and community-based scientists can contribute to the conservation of our dynamic flora.

Clara Holmes is a Field Scientist with NYC Parks, specializing in Botany. Most of her field work consists of monitoring vegetation pre and post restoration, and tracking rare plant populations in NYC Parks. She holds a Master’s of Science from Pace University and Bachelor’s of Arts from the College of Charleston.

There was a time when prominent judges, bankers, politicians, doctors and many others spent hours in the fields, woods and wetlands in and around New York City observing nature and publishing the results of their studies for posterity. In celebration of the 200th anniversary of John Torrey’s landmark flora of New York City, we sought to collect all that has been published on the natural history of New York City from a botanical perspective. From the earliest Dutch accounts of the 17th Century to the present, the botany related literature from the Metropolitan region currently numbers over 2,000 individual titles, most of them authored by what we today call citizen scientists.

Daniel Atha has conducted botanical field work in all fifty states, published one book and almost 50 scientific articles ranging from ethnobotany, pharmacognosy, systematics and floristics and currently manages the New York City EcoFlora project. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the City University of New York.

There was a time when prominent judges, bankers, politicians, doctors and many others spent hours in the fields, woods and wetlands in and around New York City observing nature and publishing the results of their studies for posterity. In celebration of the 200th anniversary of John Torrey’s landmark flora of New York City, we sought to collect all that has been published on the natural history of New York City from a botanical perspective. From the earliest Dutch accounts of the 17th Century to the present, the botany related literature from the Metropolitan region currently numbers over 2,000 individual titles, most of them authored by what we today call citizen scientists.

Meryl Rubin has been a Research Assistant at The New York Botanical Garden for over two decades. She holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University.