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The Clinton
Correspondence of Edward Tuckerman (1817-1886) and Mary Wilson (? - 1919): a
Preliminary Review September 30, 2012 |
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The Edited
by P. M. Eckel, P.O. Box 299, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri,
63166‑0299; email: mailto:patricia.eckel@mobot.org
Edward Tuckerman Introduction The
first letter Clinton saved from his correspondence with Edward Tuckerman is
dated June 5, the first year in which Clinton had decided to preserve his botanical
correspondence, and the 27th letter in his collection. This was not, however,
the first time Clinton corresponded with Tuckerman, for on November 18 of the
previous year (1864), Clinton noted in his collecting diary the following: [1864.] Nov. 19. Wrote to Prof. Ed. Tuckermann,
Amherst College, de Pursh's journal & map of his travel in the U.S. See
Dr. Torrey's letter of Nov. 14 (Letter No. 35). Since
the collection of letters comprising the Clinton correspondence only began in
1865, Dr. John Torrey’s November 14th letter, of presumably 1864, is not on
record in the Research Library of the Buffalo Museum of Science. It is an
interesting fact, because it indicates that Clinton had a letter collection
already in existence before 1865, and Torrey’s letter was “No. 35” of that
set. Perhaps this collection resides in some other institution, or is lost.
The Latin ‘de’, ‘regarding’ or ‘in reference to’ Pursh’s journal and map is
an instance of Latinisms from Clinton’s legal background, not from an interest
in Classical Latin literature. John Torrey then of Columbia College in New
York (now Columbia University) probably recommended that Clinton write to
Tuckerman regarding Pursh. It
is unknown at this point what interest Clinton may have had in Frederick
Traugott Pursh (1774-1820), a botanist who immigrated to the United States in
1799. Pursh is associated with the explication of the botanical collections
made during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Since most of these collections
were lost, perhaps Clinton was interested in hunting them down for the
herbarium he was building for the the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences.
Pursh had collected in 1805 and 1806 from Maryland south to the Carolinas and
north from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire, a total of over six thousand miles.
He later botanized in Quebec before he died in Montreal in 1820. The Quebec
material was destroyed by fire, but as Clinton’s letter above specified
travel in the United States, it is probably Pursh’s American collections made
while working for Benjamin Smith Barton from 1802 to 1805 in which he was
interested. Pursh worked in Philadelphia as curator and collector for Barton,
who wished to write a new flora of North America, but never did (Ewan 1952). The
next month, in December, 1864, Clinton noted in his diary: [1864.] Dec. 6. Received packet from Prof.
Tuckerman, containing his Potamogeton Claytonii, Juncus Greenei, 2 Carices,
and a very kind letter. Note that a specimen of Juncus Greenei collected by Tuckerman
from the “Coast of Maine” with a label written by Clinton was donated to
Purdue University by Clinton. A digital image of this specimen is presented
below:
Images courtesy Nick Harby, Arthur & Kriebel Herbaria,
Dept. of Botany & Plant Pathology, Edward
Tuckerman was 48 years old in 1864. The reference to a specimen of Potamogeton is a tribute to
Tuckerman’s early “elaboration of our species of Potamogeton, then [in 1848 and 1849] for the first time
critically studied in the United States (Gray 1886). Tuckerman, in
preparation for his 1849 Potamogeton
flora, reported that he had visited Niagara Falls and also adjacent Canada.
Niagara Falls on both sides of the Niagara River would be a frequent
destination of Clinton’s for botanical collecting more than a decade later
than Tuckerman. Potamogeton lonchites Tuckerm. “I gathered in the Niagara rapids, near
Bath island [sic].” Potamogeton
rufescens (Schrad.) Tuckerm. he collected “Also
in the rapids of the Niagara near Bath Island.” Potamogeton amplifolius Tuckerm.: “I
gathered my specimens near the Niagara river, on the Canada side ...”. Potamogeton pectinatus (L.) Tuckerm. was collected in the “Lakes of Western New York” by Asa
Gray, and Tuckerman also collected this at “Niagara Falls.” Tuckerman
found a species of Udora growing in water in the type locality of and
mixed with Potamogeton niagrensis "near the brink of the
Hog-back" at Niagara Falls, New York, - perhaps indicating Luna Island. Udora
is an earlier name for Anacharis and A. canadensis is
the only species in the genus in our area. This
‘kind letter’ of Tuckerman’s of December 6, 1864 is also not a part of those
in the Research Library Clinton correspondence collection. In
1840, Dr. Francis Boott (1792-1863) published his first treatment of North American Carices (the Sedges) presented in Sir William Hooker’s “Flora
Boreali-Americana” (Gray 1886). A year later, in 1841, Tuckerman showed his
own early interest in the Sedges, publishing a two page paper on “Notice of
some Cyperaceae of our Vicinity.” He would also produce, in 1843, his 21 page
publication, the Enumeratio Methodica Caricum quarundam, “in which he
displayed not only his critical knowledge of the large and difficult genus Carex, but also his genius as a
systematizer; for this essay was the first considerable, and a really
successful, attempt to combine the species of this genus into natural
groups.” (Gray 1886). Tuckerman
would describe Carex argyrntha, sp. nov.: “descr. Amherst. Aug. 16, 1859;
published in Wood’s Class-Book of Botany 1861, p. 753. Carex glaucodea Mss.:
Proc. Am. Acad. vii. 395 (1868)” (Willey, addenda: Botanical Gazette Vol. 11 (7)
July 1886: p. 182). For Carex glaucodea, see letter below 25 Feb., 1871. Boott
would continue to specialize in the genus Carex
for the remainder of his life. He produced “Illustrations of the Genus Carex” in four parts between 1858 and
1867, the fourth part being published by J. D. Hooker after Boott’s death in
1863. Although in the next few decades, Boott would go on to become the
formost expert in the genus, Tuckerman did not lose his interest in the
group. It was to Tuckerman that Gray sent the remainder of Boott’s Carex collections after Boott died in
1863, and from there to Clinton at Buffalo, and then to Elihu Hall in
Illinois. The
beginning of Clinton’s correspondence with Tuckerman happened during the
1860’s, while Tuckerman was teaching at Amherst College, Massachusetts, and
by which time he had established himself as the foremost lichenologist in
North America. Tuckerman chose to study lichens in his youth as a member of
the Natural History Society of Boston when it was newly organized (Gray
1886), publishing his “Enumeration of Some Lichenes of New England” when he
was only twenty-two years old. “Excepting Halsey’s ‘Synoptic View’ this was
the first work by an American, entirely devoted to lichens.” (Fink 1906). He
was working on a series of papers: Observations on North American and some
other Lichenes, published in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, in 1860, 1862, 1864 and then later in 1877. He was also working
on the “Lichens of California, Oregon, and the Rocky Mountains” which would
be published in 1866 and a preparation of the Lichens in the “Enumeration of
Hawaiian Plants” by Horace Mann, to be published in 1868 (Farlow 1887).
Tuckerman had been one of a number of American experts Asa Gray could rely
on, his “team of experts” which included the mycologist M. A. Curtis and the
bryologist W. S. Sullivant (Dupree 1959). It was due to Tuckerman’s
productivity in American lichenology that Bruce Fink was to refer to the
period from 1847 to 1888 as “The Tuckermanian Period” in North American
Lichenology (Fink 1906), a time when “everything in American lichenology was
colored by the views of Tuckerman.” The
following is the first of Tuckerman’s letters to Clinton from the
correspondence preserved and numbered by Clinton, beginning in 1865: Vol. 1. 27. I 201 Amherst 5 June 1865 [European
notation] Dear Sir, I am desired by Professor Gray to send to
you a parcel of duplicate Carices from the Herbarium of the late Dr.
Boott, & to say that he will write to you in regard to them, & have
this evening delivered the parcel to the Agent of Thompson's Express &
hope it will reach you safely. I sent a parcel of [specimens] desired by
you, last year & trust it reached you. With respect Your [af.. s..]
[= affectionate servant?] Edw. Tuckerman Hon. G. W. Clinton Buffalo Recd. June 8 &
ackd. The specimens sent “last year” were those
received by Clinton on December 6, 1864 discussed above, but which were
apparently not yet acknowledged. The present shipment of Carex specimens must be the "lot of Carices" Gray was arranging to have sent to Clinton, noted
in the following letter to Clinton from Asa Gray and dated on the same day
(June 5): Vol 1. (25) [I 203] [Cambridge] 5 June
[1865] Dear Clinton It will be time, when you receive this,
to collect the Scirpus Clintonii, a great lot of it. Some of it 10 days
later, also. Collinsia verna I chiefly want seeds of,
sent fresh, when quite ripe. I am arranging to have a lot of Carices
sent you. Ever [yours] A. Gray [written by Clinton:]
Received June 7, wrote him 9th The Carices
were to come from Edward Tuckerman to Clinton and derived from the
"Herbarium of the late Dr. Boott” (Tuckerman Vol.1(27).
See also Tuckerman's letter of June 15, 1865 (Vol.1(45)
where Elihu Hall of Athens, Illinois, was to receive the leavings after
Clinton's selection. The Scirpus
Clintonii (Clinton's Club-rush), described by Gray in 1864, delighted
Clinton who avidly sought more of it from the type locality around Buffalo,
New York. In the Fifth edition of Gray's Manual of Botany, 1867, this species
is listed (p. 561) as growing in "Rather dry plains, New York, Jefferson
Co., Dr. Crawe; near Buffalo, G. W. Clinton. June." In Clinton’s botanical journal for May,
1865, he wrote (in Buffalo, New York): May 30. P.M. Walked with [David F.] Day,
turned into the wood east of & this side of the tollgate, & so,
through the next copse, & by Ambrose's tavern, to Mr. Crocker's,
collected more Fedia olitoria, a
garden umbellifer, = anise. Chaenophyllum sativum. Viola tricolor, in his
front yard, walked back a little way, & then turned to the right, into
the fields & copses, found Scirpus
Clintonii abundant. Then back, homeward, stopped in at Mr. Hodge's
garden, & young Mr Hodge gave me specimens of Aesculus Pavia, &c., a
Cytisus? Mem. In Mr. H.'s garden, to be obtained - In June 11: In the field beyond, noticed Carex pallescens again, but in the
plain, to the little wood east of the quarries, could not find Scirpus Clintonii, back to the bushy
field, or copse, and found it almost gone [probably out of fruit - ed.], but
got a number of (116) specimens. Clinton also collected Collinsia verna: on May 22:
Walked out to Smoke's Creek. Collinsia
verna abundant, in the wood just above the R. R. bridge. Its
inflorescence being centripetal, it is in nice condition, flowers above, full
sized fruit below. In
1865, on June 7, two days after Tuckerman wrote his June 5 letter to Clinton,
Clinton wrote in his collecting diary: Received from Prof.
Tuckermann (at Prof. Gray's request) a package of duplicate Carices from Dr. Boott's herbarium. Francis Boott had died in 1863. Boott,
also, with Tuckerman, a native of Boston, Mass., published in his lifetime
approximately 442 species and varieties in the genus Carex and other genera
in the Cyperaceae. He also contributed treatments to the Flora of California,
in the Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, the Flora of Boreal America, the
flora of Antarctica, species from a Voyage to Japan and other works - a
monumental contribution to science probably mostly overlooked in America due
to his living and dying in England. Boott is famous for having been the first
to use ether in Britain as an anaesthetic (during a dental procedure). Note
should be made that he first learned of its use in America as such from, Dr. Jacob
Bigelow, an American colleague of Boott’s. During a brief sojourn in his native
America, Boott “in 1816 was part of a group that made botanical explorations
of New England mountains including: Wachusett Mount, Mt. Monadnock, Ascutney
Mountain, and Mt. Washington. This party also included Dr. Jacob Bigelow,
Francis C. Gray, Judge Shaw and Nathaniel Tucker” (Harvard University
Herbaria 2002, on line). Boott kept up a correspondence with Asa
Gray and his letters are in the Harvard Archives. Apparently, Asa Gray
received Boott’s Herbarium, from which 33 type specimens from the
Illustrations of the Genus Carex
were retained. Duplicates were sent perhaps to Tuckerman first, then on to
Clinton, finally ending up with Elihu Hall in Illinois. The majority of Elihu
Hall’s collections are now in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago,
Illinois. Ten
days after Tuckerman sent his letter on June 5th, Tuckerman wrote the
following: Vol. 1. 45. I 181 Amherst 15 June 1865 Dear Sir Your acceptable & friendly letter has
been received, & I am glad the Plants arrived safely. But I forgot to say
that Dr. Gray's wish was that you should select from the collection, &
then transfer the remainder to Mr. E. Hall, at Athens, Illinois. Will you permit me to add that one or two
specimens of your Eleoch. Clintonii, such as will go conveniently in a letter
envelope, will be very grateful [sic] - as I continue to study all the
Northern Cyperaceae, though only rarely collecting. With much respect Your obt. servt. E. Tuckerman Hon. G. W. Clinton Buffalo Recd. June 19 &
ansd. ditto & 20th expressed him a very small packet. The
Eleocharis clintonii is an error
for Scirpus clintonii A. Gray. Elihu
Hall (1822 1882) of Athens, Menard Co., Illinois,
was a correspondent of Clinton’s. The first of his letters to Clinton that
have been preserved at Buffalo, occurred on Sept. 18th 1865, a response to a
letter sent by Clinton in May. Hall’s main contribution to science was his
plant collections and the exchange of specimens formed the major part of the
content of their communication. Gray’s interest in Hall derived from Gray’s
study and publication of species collected by Dr. C. C. Parry and Elihu Hall
and J. P. Harbour “during the Summer and Autumn of 1862, on and near the
Rocky Mountains, in Colorado Territory” (Gray 1863). Gray may have sent
Boott’s specimens on perhaps as an exchange with Hall. It is also likely that
Gray wished to support the young Illinois Natural History Survey at
Bloomington, of which Hall was one of the organizers in 1858 (Weber 1997)
much as Gray helped Clinton and his Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences,
formed in 1862. In
Clinton’s journal, on April 4, of 1865, in fact, “In the evening, Prof. C. D.
Wilber (Gen. Comm'r. [=Commissioner] of the Illinois Natural Historical
Society) called with letter of introduction from Hon. Anson S. Miller. Prof.
Wilber's address is No. 1, Fullerton Block, Chicago.” Clinton
also was to donate authentically determined specimens at the heart of the
earliest plant collections and the study of botany at Purdue University
(Eckel & Harby 2011). Eleven days after Tuckerman wrote his
letter of June 15, above, Tuckerman responded to another letter, sent during
the intervening time, from Clinton. Vol. 1. 62. I 163 Amherst 26 June 1865 Dear Sir Thank you very heartily for the parcel of
specimens by express. The new Scirpus Clintonii, will be valued not
only for itself, but as coming from the botanist who discovered it. Shall I
confess to you that I am more interested in a new Scirpus than I
should be in a new Collinsia? But none the less are your elegant
specimens of C. verna acceptable, as I had
only very poor representatives of the species before. The large Herbm. [which] I once formed is now in Upsal; I sent it to my excellent friend &
master, Prof. Fries; & the colln. [= collection] which I now possess has
been formed only to illustrate & help me in the general knowledge of the
small Flora of this immediate region -
& having got rid of the business of exchange my plants - it is a small
colln., with not a few gaps in it. For this reason I welcome also the
specimens of Scirpus Torreyi, having detected it here. Najas major is another plant which I have
long desired. And Scolopendrium was not in my present Hermb. till you contributed it. I wish you much success in the
Cryptogams. I find the Lichens almost
as puzzling & ...., as if it were not 25 years that I have sought to
understand them. Mosses I fancy are easier. One soon learns the great genera
- but I have got no farther, and fear I never shall - though I have
considerable material in the way of Collns. to
facilitate the study. As to Fungi,
I shudder at the thought of encountering them! Believe me, with respect Truly Yours Edw. Tuckerman Recd. June 29 In
1841 Tuckerman travelled to Germany and then Scandinavia, “going as far north
as Upsala, devoting himself, as in a subsequent visit, to philosophical,
historical, and botanical studies” (Gray 1886). Apparently,
as noted below, Tuckerman made quite a few collections of specimens of the
genus Carex from northern Europe on this trip and sent them to Francis Boott
(see below). Farlow noted “While in Europe [Tuckerman] did not limit his
botanical studies to lichens, but also worked on some of the more difficult genera
of phaenogams” leading to Tuckerman’s private publication “shortly after his
return, in 1843 ... his “Enumeratio Methodica Caricum Querundam” which was
favorably commented upon by Asa Gray (Fernald 1887). It
was perhaps a collection of North American lichen Tuckerman donated to Fries,
but this seems unusual when Tuckerman’s life-work on the North American
lichens was eventually to be prepared toward the end of his life, and so it
was perhaps a collection of vascular plants given to Fries, not lichens. While
in Europe, in 1842, Tuckerman made the acquaintance of Archibald Menzies
(b. 1754), a Scottish surgeon who had
served in the Royal (British) Navy, and who had served as botanist and
naturalist on various extensive voyages, especially to the west (Pacific)
coast of North America. Tuckerman must have visited him just before Menzies
death, which occurred on February 15, 1842 (Wikipedia, Archibald Menzies,
viewed March 21, 2013). Menzies appears to have visited western North
America, especially the western side of Vancouver Island, at least three
times, making collections, several of which were used to describe species new
to science. In
1866 Tuckerman wrote “Menzies, who visited the North West Coast of America in
1787-8, and somewhat later, with [Captain] Vancouver’s expedition, was the
first to observe, principally, if not entirely at Monterey, the remarkable
Coast-lichens of California. Some of his specimens reached Acharius; but
others, and among them Ramalina Menziesii, Tayl.,
remained undescribed for more than half a century. Having the good fortune to
meet this venerable botanist in 1842, I was favoured by him with a
considerable set of his duplicates.” (Tuckerman 1866). There is a Ramalina
Menziesii, Tuckerman in the 1882 Synopsis (“Tuckerm. Syn. N. Eng. p. 12, not
of Taylor (p. 24, Synopsis).” In
Tuckerman’s personal collections were specimens from the “coast north of
California, and of the Rocky Mountains” given to him by Sir J. W. Hooker, as
well as specimens Hooker gave him made “with the Oregon Boundary Commission
by Dr. Lyall, and a smaller one, from Palliser’s British North American
Expedition, by Bourgeau,” and a list of a host of other western collectors
such as H. N. Bolander, Charles Wright, Elihu Hall, from a variety of
expeditions fixing the boundary of the United States and Canada or Mexico
(Tuckerman 1866) Tuckerman
returned to the United States in September of 1842. He had graduated from
Union College, Schenectady, with a B. A. in 1837, and later obtained a Law
Degree from Harvard Law School, graduating in 1839 (Gray 1886). Even before
he published on the genera Potamogeton
and Carex mentioned above,
Tuckerman had written his earliest publications on the Lichens of New England,
particularly the alpine lichen flora of the White Mountains. Where his
interest and expertise derived at this early date is unrecorded, but he may
have studied botany during his studies at Union College or even earlier, as a
student of the Boston Latin School. At Union “he was appointed curator of the
museums” (Tyler 1886) due to his interest in the natural sciences - this was
probably immediately after his trip when he returned to Union College to
study for his Master’s degree (Farlow 1887). In 1843 Tuckerman published
three papers on the vascular plants of New England. It was while at Union he
published his Carex study. Gray
(1886) attributed his early enthusiasm and inspiration from association with
a Dr. Harris, of Harvard, a librarian and entomologist, and William Oakes, an
ardent botanist, of Ipswich, Massachusetts. A
further note on Tuckerman’s interest in Carex may be found in Henry Willey’s
necrology of Tuckerman (1886). As a note to Willey’s comment on Tuckerman’s
1843 publication “Enumeratio methodica Caricum quarundam, Schenectady, Riggs,
1843), the editors of the Botanical Gazette wrote: “In a letter to Mr. Willey
accompanying [this publication (Willey 1886)] the author (Tuckerman) says: “I
send a brochure of mine upon Carex written some 20 years since when I was
tolerably familiar with the common species both of Europe and America ... I
collected in most parts of the north of Europe in 1841-2 and formed a large
herbarium from my correspondents’ gifts and exchanges, the whole of which I gave
afterwards to Boott of London. Since his death the greater part of this has
been returned to me.” The editors wrote “This little work is quite remarkable
for its keen insight into the relationships of the numerous species of this
difficult genus” (editors of the Botanical Gazette in Willey 1886). Note
that in Tuckerman’s letter to Clinton above, it is to Fries that Tuckerman
sent a plant collection, including exchanges - perhaps there is some
confusion here, yet both accounts are by Tuckerman. Interest
in the local flora would never leave Tuckerman. In 1875 he would publish the
lichenological flora of the area, with Charles C. Frost, in which he taught
in Massachusetts: “A Catalogue of Plants growing without cultivation within
thirty miles of Amherst College.” Amherst. In
Upsala, he made the acquaintance of Prof. Elias Fries. This acquaintance made
a profound impression on Tuckerman, and “he kept up a correspondence with him
to the end of the venerable botanist’s life [i.e. Fries]” (Gray 1886). This influence
was based on a deeply perceptive or intuitive apprehension of the form of
major groups of species at the generic level. Tuckerman “cultivated to
perfection, that sense of the value of the indefinable something which
botanists inadequately express by the term ‘habit,’ which often enable the
systematist to divine much further than he can perceive in the tracing of
relationships” (Gray 1886). Neither Fries nor Tuckerman had access to the
minute characteristics of the species, such as the spore, discernible by the
use of the relatively modern “instrumental appliance” of the microscope,
although this inference is belied by his letter to George Clinton below, in
1866 when he stated that Clinton required a microscope to study lichens -
with a particular view to the spores. Fries
must have appealed to the abstract and mystical side of thought that
Tuckerman embraced - as he took up studies in theology at the Harvard
Divinity School (Farlow 1887). The tendency to see natural history as one of
the mysteries of divinity in Tuckerman’s intensely private world may account
for his style of professional writing, “his sagacity in detecting affinities,
and his philosophical and rather peculiar turn of mind” (Gray 1886). The fact
that he chose Latin (as did Fries) in which to express his ideas, in an
involuted style reminiscent of the German language where one often had to
hunt carefully for the verb, was ably described by Gray (1886), as though
only the initiated were given entry to the mysteries of Nature. This suggestion
of Neo-Platonic feeling seems implied in Gray’s sense that Tuckerman’s
“philosophical conception of an ideal connection of forms which are capable
of a wide play of variation”, leading to “broad views of genera and species.” Tuckerman’s
assessment of the “Friesian System” is described in An Enumeration of North
American Lichenes ... to which is prefixed an essay on the natural systems of
Oken, Fries, and Endlicher. 1845. Cambridge (Culberson 1964). A modern
opinion of Tuckerman’s ideas was noted by J. W. Thomson: “The quaintly worded
but deep insights of the discussions [in Tuckerman’s early works] should
provoke many a more careful consideration of taxonomic problems.” By
1865, Tuckerman had given to Fries, in Upsala, Sweden, the large herbarium he
had accumulated. This may seem contrary to the present day practice in our
“ownership society” especially as the publication career of Tuckerman was by
no means over in 1865. The specimens sent to Sweden were perhaps the vouchers
for a 1847 paper on the lichens of New England, the Northern States, and
British America (Canada), with its 295 species, 20 of which were new to
science (Farlow 1887), and exsiccat material, three fascicles of which were
issued from Cambridge during 1847-1855, and new species of lichens sent to
him from the Southern States and California. An
example of a paper based on his local flora was, “The Vegetation of the White
Mountains: in the White Hills, their legends, landscape, and poetry” by
Thomas Starr King, published in 1860. It
is clear from Tuckerman’s June 26 response to a letter by Clinton, that
Clinton was interested in Tuckerman’s efforts in the cryptogams, including
algae, mosses and fungi. By the end of March, 1865, Clinton was already in
the beginning of a correspondence with Charles Peck, of Albany, New York,
regarding the identification of mosses, as well as vascular plants, which
would later evolve into the identification of fungi. During the turn of the
1864-1865 year, Clinton had visited the State Cabinet of Natural History to
contribute, as one of the State Regents, to a reorganization of that
institution, the establishment of a “People’s College” and what would
eventually become Cornell University. He visited the herbarium at Cambridge,
Mass. to talk to Asa Gray, and specialists and assistants working there, to
get information on the creation of a herbarium for the Buffalo Society of
Natural Sciences in Buffalo, New York. After this time, Clinton had begun
work on organizing and mounting botanical specimens Over
a year later, in Clinton’s collecting diary, late in 1866, Clinton wrote: Nov. 30. Wrote to
Prof. E. Tuckerman, Amherst College, as to the title of his works on lichens,
& where they could be bought. In answer he gave us his works [books],
& promised us his assistance. See his kind letter, No. 180.
This note in Clinton’s diary is curious due to the preposition “us,”
which is not explained in his diary or in its index. This is one of the few
instances of Clinton’s reference to Miss Mary Wilson. Earlier, on May 25 of
the previous year (1865) Clinton wrote “Thursday. Mary made up a package of
plants, to be put in Express to morrow, for C. M. Tracy, Curator of Botany,
of the Essex Institute, care of Dr. Henry Wheatland, Secretary, Salem, Massachusetts. Expressed it 26th.” It is an indication that as Clinton was
preparing and organizing the new herbarium of the Buffalo Society of Natural
Sciences, he was working with the assistance of the rather enigmatic Mary
Wilson. One of the services she provided to the young Society was the
preparation of duplicate specimens, often sorted by Clinton up in the
“garrett” of his private residence and later taken to rooms of the Buffalo
Society where Mary would prepare them for the Express to be sent to Clinton’s
correspondents. The
Tuckerman letter referred to in Clinton’s November 30 (1866) note is as
follows: Vol.3 No. 180 [M 44] Amherst 3 Dec. 1866 Dear Sir I received to night your note of 30th ult.
- & take pleasure in telling you what I can. (Though [younger?], I too look with
hopeless interest on the Mosses, Algae & Fungi of my neighbourhood - of
which I have learned just enough to feel a regretting ignorance. It is
otherwise with the Lichens, and I have studied these long enough to be able
to say something about them. You will require a compound microscope to
determine the characters of the spores. And with this and some convenient
manual, the study may be a very pleasant and profitable one - to be pursued
all through the year - and especially in moist weather in winter and spring
when a botanist has no other out-door resource. I shall take pleasure in determining sets
of specimens (which can be sent by mail) so far as too great an exertion is
not required of my eyes over the microscope - essential in the crustaceous
group. And I think in this way, if you take it up as a scientific recreation,
to be pursued slowly, I can always undertake to authenticate what is
collected, so long as you desire it. If, however, a great collection were to
be made at once I am not so sure that I could be able to grapple with it - so
far as the microscope wd be required. My publications are all in the form of
memoirs in transactions - except one or two printed separately. I do not know
that I ever had a publication properly speaking; & surely there is no public
here for a lichenologist. I am happy to be able to ask you to
accept the very last copy (duplicate) of the Synopsis of North Amer. Lichens.
published by me in 1848 - & also a smaller copy
of a few years before. Since, I have been lost in the tropics & their
wealth of curious types - but hope now soon to be able to publish a new work
(approaching completion) on the Genera of North Amer. Lichens. How soon a
"Species Lichenum" can follow this is to me obscure. I have my
hands full. It is however a satisfaction to be able to say that the main
outlines of my view of the System remain today, as they were presented
in the Synopsis 10 years ago. The Lichenes Amer. Exsiccati, of
which three volumes have appeared, is the only work I have sold. But this is
now in part exhausted, & I must wait for time to renew it before I can
send out any copies. The first volume is gone entirely. You will gain however
precisely the same benefit, from named series of specimens, which I shall be
glad to do my part in. The best Introduction is a small volume
by Dr. Lauder Lindsay, published during the last ten years, & for sale by
N. York booksellers. I do not own it or I wd give the title. Acharius, "Lichenographia
Universalis, 4to 1810, & Synopsis, 8vo 1814 are general works,
& Fries, Lichenographia Europea, 1831, the most important since. It has given me pleasure to communicate
these hints, which I hope may prove of service. Very respy & truly yours Edw. Tuckerman Hon. G. W. Clinton Recd. Dec. 5 wrote to
Coleman T. Robinson the 6th, ansd 11th. William
Lauder Lindsay was nineteenth century physician in Perth, Scotland. He wrote:
A Popular History of British Lichens, comprising an account of their
structure, reproduction, uses, distribution, and classification. By W. Lauder
Lindsay, M.D., London 1856. Lovell Reeve, 5, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden
(John Edward Taylor, Printer, Little Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields). “To
Sir William Jackson Hooker, K.H., LL.D., Director of The Royal Botanic
Gardens of Kew, and Dr. Josepf Dalton Hoorker, F. R. S., Assistant Director
of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, this humble and first attempt to
popularize the study of British Lichens is, with much respect and esteem,
dedicated by The Author.” In
1845, Tuckerman published “An Enumeration of North American Lichens,”
described as a “little work” by Tyler (1886). Later, in 1848, he was to publish
the “Synopsis of the lichens of New England, the other Northern States and
British America,” which was “the first full descriptive list of our lichenes
published in this country. It enumerates and describes 295 species of which
twenty are new” (Tyler 1886). In
the “Observationes Lichenologicae” submitted to the Proceedings of the
American Academy, the 1862 (vol.v:383-422) and 1864 (vol. vi. pp. 263-287)
publications were “largely devoted to the Cuban collections of Charles
Wright; a portion of this collection was issued in 1864 under the title
“Caroli Wrightii Lichenes Cubae curante E. Tuckerman” (Willey 1886). “This
collection” must refer to specimens issued in exsiccat form. Note that an
important number of these lichen specimens of Wright’s were sent to Dr.
Nylander, of Paris, for determination, in whose hands it remained for many
years, when it was transferred to Dr. J. Mueller, of Geneva, Switzerland, by
whom it was issued in 1884, but with most of the plants still unnamed and
undescribed, much to the disappointment of those who had purchased this noble
collection hoping to find it an aid in the determination of tropical lichens”
(Willey 1886). This material would have been of great use to Charles Mohr in
his great summary of the flora of Alabama. As
to Tuckerman’s exsiccat, Gray wrote that Tuckerman “much helped the study of
his favorite plants by the preparation and issue of his “Lichenes Americae
Septentrionalis Exsiccati,” in six fasciculi, or three volumes, highly valued
by those who fortunately possess them” (Gray 1886). In
November, 1866, just before he wrote his Nov. 30 entry in his journal,
Clinton had travelled to New York City to visit Dr. John Torrey and to
purchase, apparently species paper (paper for genera would be ordered from
Asa Gray by the advice of Torrey) for the new herbarium he was building for
the B.S.N.S. He visited a variety of people, all noted in his journal entry
for the month and year. Coleman T. Robinson, who was then living in New York
City “...very courteous & good, took me to look up books for the society,
in the stores on Nassau St. On my recommendation he bought two, small vols., which I brought home with me, and he promises to
complete one set of DeCandolle's Prodromus &c. &c.” Coleman T. Robinson was fundamental in
the establishment of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences in 1862 in
Buffalo, New York. He “had moved to the New York City area some time in the
late sixties...” (Goodyear 1994). He is said by Goodyear to have been “only”
23 years old when the BSNS was founded (established in 1862). By 1866 he had
moved to New York City and by 1872 he had died - perhaps when he was in his
late 30’s. Although Goodyear wrote that Coleman lived “in the town of
Brewsters in Putnam County, New York,” Coleman also lived in the City itself.
In the November entry, Clinton wrote “With my [son] George, spent a pleasant
evening with [Augustus R.] Grote & Robinson, at their room, where they
keep & study their moths & butterflies, Room No. 11 of 907 Broadway.” It was Mr. Robinson who would purchase
lichenological and other books for the new society of natural history,
although in this instance Tuckerman himself freely sent along his own copies
of his own works. 1. William Lauder
Lindsey, M.D. 1856. A Popular History of British Lichens comprising an
account of their structure,reproduction, uses,
distribution, and classification. London. Erik Acharius. 2. Erik Acharius.
1810. Lichenographia Universalis in qua lichenes Lichenes omnes detectos
adiectis observationibus et figuris horum vegetabilium naturam et organorum
carpomorphorum structuram illustrantibus, ad genera, species, varietates
differentiis et observationibus sollicite definitas. Gottingen. 1814. Synopsis Methodica
Lichenum, sistens omnes hujus ordinis naturalis detectas plantas, quas,
secundum genera, species et varietates disposuit, characteribus et
differentiis emendatis definivit, nec non synonymis et observationibus
selectis illustravit. Lund. "The father of Lichenology,"
Acharius did for lichens what Fries did for gilled
fungi and Lamarck did for invertebrates: provided a coherent and productive
classification system for a large group of organisms utterly mishandled by
Linnaeus. He spent the energies of his entire life studying lichens, doing
the first microscopic work on them, and providing them with meaningful genera
(Linnaeus just stuck them all in the genus "Lichen", which is how
we get the English word).” (website, 2012). 3. Elias Magnus Fries. 1831. Lichenographia
Europaea reformata: praemittuntur lichenologiae fundamenta; compendium in
theoreticum et practicum lichenum studium. Lund. Note that
collections of lichens had already been made as well as the decision to study
them. Clinton’s letter of November 30 had inquired whether Tuckerman would be
willing to determine or verify their identity. By
1866, Tuckerman’s books would include “An Enumeration of North American
Lichenes. Cambridge, 1845, small octavo volume with 59 pages; also A Synopsis
of the Lichenes of the Northern United States and British America.
Proceedings American Academy of Art and Sciences. I, 195-285. 1848. Reprint
8vo. Pp.v, 93 (Farlow 1887). His other works were published in such journals
as The American Journal of Science and Arts and the Proceedings of the
American Academy of Arts and Science, the Smithsonian Miscellaneous
Collections, as well as pages in other author’s books, such as by Louis
Agassiz. By
1858 and 1859, Tuckerman was identifying specimens from California (Col.
Fremont, Dr. Parry), , the Bering’s Straits, the coast of Japan, Texas and
Cuba (C. Wright), Alabama (Hon. T. M. Peters, Mr. Beaumont), Mississipi (Dr.
Veitch), South Carolina (H. W. Ravenel),
Florida (Dr. Blodgett), Louisiana (Dr. Hale), as well as Vermont (Mr. Frost),
even in Pen Yan, New York (Dr. Sartwell)
(Tuckerman 1858-1859). Tuckerman’s
work on the North American genera of lichens would not be published until
1872 (see below). It
took no time at all for Clinton to write another letter to Tuckerman, asking
for additional information. Tuckerman responded as follows: Vol. 3 No. 206 [M 16] Amherst 15 Dec. 1866 Dear Sir, It gave me pleasure to set down such
hints as may enable one to collect Lichens. They are
either fruticulosus, foliaceous, or crustaceous. The first two occur
both on trees and rocks, and also on the earth. They require all of them moderate
pressure when moist enough to yield.
This can be brought about by sprinkling the newspaper in which they
are wrapped & putting it into a tin collecting box. Then, if just limber,
but not in the least wet - if taken but a short time, & only the most moderate
pressure to give the requisite flatness for the herbarium - wch is done in
this way without any injury to the specimen. If wet however they will
not be worth much when dry - as the pressure will injure them. Other lichens are crustaceous, growing
also on trees, rocks and the earth. We get the species for the former, by
taking thin slices of bark containing them, also to be laid between boards,
or in books that they may not curl before drying. The rock-species require a
hammer. Specimens already dried can be restored
to life by wetting them. Your Rock-tripe of the Catskills is probably either Umbilicaria
Pennsylvanica or U. pustulata, both described in my Synopsis. When prepared, they can be affixed to
small or large squares of white paper [not?]ing
place, kind of tree or rock or soil &c. - numbered & put away. By
sending specimens with the same no. to a Lichenist, he can determine -
keeping the specimens sent. I shall be very happy to be of service in this
way. As to Florida, if the collector goes to
the extreme South, or to the Keys, everything lichenose will be worthy of
note, the vegetation there touching that of Cuba - and if he will merely do
up such species in scraps of paper & keep them in a bag or box, without
pressing, they can all be made right, and turned to account, when he returns. The North West of Florida is rather
better known, but he will do well to collect, if he finds it convenient. It was grateful to me to know that you
feel as I still do in regard to the materialistic dogmatic philosophers. Life
would seem to me worth very little for ... ... of ..., if it were a true one.
But I am sure it is not. Respectfully & truly yours Edw. Tuckerman Hon. G. W. Clinton Recd. Dec. 19 Dec. 1866 After
receiving Tuckerman’s letter, Clinton wrote in his journal: “Dec. 26. Have
been at work, off & on, ever since my return from New York, on the
Herbarium. Mr. Joseph Stocking Lewis, of Batavia [N.Y.], has helped me a good
deal. I worked all Christmas day, and now, 10 A.M. have selected specimens of
the Ranunculaceae, and of all the Cyperaceae except Carex, & poisoned
them, so that they are ready to be set up on their papers, and the duplicates
are bundled up, & the bundles are labelled, & in, or ready to go into
the duplicate case.” On
the first day of the new year (1867) Clinton worked on the new BSNS herbarium
and the Carices, including the ones from the Boott Herbarium: “
January
1. 9 1/2 A.M. I have just read &c. my letters. Mr. Joseph S. (Stocking)
Lewis, of Batavia, is with me, in the Library Room of our Society, at work in
setting up the Herbarium. He has been, so far, a real, substantial helper.
Miss Lillie Chester has undertaken to make boxes for the Herbarium, & I
have bought and shall take her, to day, paper for them. This morning, Mr. Lewis will commence on
the 2d quart of the solution in alcohol, of corrosive sublimate. It is
composed of corrosive sublimate 1/2 a drachma to 1 oz. of alcohol. I am still
dinging away at Carex.” [1867] “January 2.
Working at the Carices, find among mine, collected at Squaw Island, what I am
confident is C. aquatilis.” [1867] “Jan. 5. This
Saturday, finished editing the Carices, & commenced working on the
grasses. Mr. Lewis has poisoned all the specimens.” [1867] “Jan. 7
Received a package from Gray, containing, among other things, some Australian
plants from Fred Mueller, & a few Lapland ones from Christian
Andersson.” [1867] “Jan. 9. 9*25' A.M. Still on the grasses.
Lewis has been away since Saturday evening, & writes that he will not be
able to be here until next week. I must go to Albany by tonight's train, to
attend the annual meeting of the Regents of the University, & must clean
up before I go. Received a very kind letter from Prof. A. W. Chapman.” [1867] “Jan. 15. About
1 P.M. got back from Albany & New York. In the Regent's meeting at
Albany, introduced a resolution that the cabinet can, if the Legislature
would provide the means,
employ a competent botanist,
indicating C. H. Peck, to take charge of the Herbarium
&c. In New York, spent an evening with Dr. Torrey.” Later
in the season Clinton wrote: Feb. 9. “Now finished
all the Monocotyledonous orders, as arranged in Gray's Manual, except
Juncaceae, also Urticaceae, Betulaceae, Coniferae. Yesterday, Dr. Gay undertook to visit The
Buffalo Female Academy, &c., and ascertain whether certain ladies would
aid in putting the specimens on paper.”
On Feb. 23 “Yesterday,
at about 2 1/2 P.M., Lily Chester, Lou Dole, & Miss Lindsay came in, went
into the work room up stairs & went bravely to work fastening plants on
their papers. They did quite a number, & promise to come again.” For
the rest of 1867, Clinton collected in various places in New York State. At
the end of the year and in the winter and early spring of 1868, he resumed
preparing the BSNS Herbarium. In 1868: “March 20.
8*15' A.M. The Herbarium has been finished some days, except a few
undetermined species, and excepting the Lichens, Algae, Fungi, Mosses &
Hepaticae, all the specimens I have selected for the Herbarium are poisoned,
fastened on paper, arranged, incased, & roughly catalogued. I have just
summed up the Catalogue, and find that the incased Herbarium contains
representatives of 156 Natural Orders, of 1388 Genera, and of 4,759 species,
displayed on 7, 443 sheets. quite a number, &
promise to come again.” On May 10: “Some time ago, for want of anything else
to do, I commenced on the Algae, & have set them up, & also the
Mosses & Lichens. The Algae represent 49 Genera 88
species on 99 sheets. The Mosses represent 127 Genera 678 species on 733 sheets. The Hepaticae represent 35 Genera 49
species on 52 sheets. The Lichens not yet put in Genera paper
& do not enter into the enumeration. Since the computation of March 20, I have
detected 4 duplications of species, and have added, besides Algae, Musci,
Hepaticae, 16 species & 103 sheets. So that the whole enumeration now
stands 159 Natural Orders 1599 Genera 5,586 species 8,430 sheets. On June 1: Added to
the Herbarium 12 sheets, 4 species. The Lichens in the Herbarium occupy 115
sheets and represent 104 species of 26 genera. The whole ennumeration now stands, with
the additons made May 19. 162 Natural Orders 1,631 Genera 5,724 species 8, 595 sheets. June 2 Added 0 1 Genus 2 Species 6 Sheets June 3 2 2 June 4
1 43 78 84 June 6 3 43 45 June 6 5 8 8 June 17
1 6 17 21 June 17
5 June 18 2 2
[164] [1,689] [5,876] [8,768] June 20 1 8 16 June 29 4 6 July 18 5 40 102 [164] [1695] [5,928] [8,892]” On June 3 Clinton
wrote: “Plains, to collect lichens. In the wood, east of Jewett's, Cerastium nutans abundant, never
noticed it there before, but, probably, it is generally diffused.” It
is some time in June that Clinton again wrote to Tuckerman who replied as
follows. Clinton is not inquiring about specimens, but whether he could
procure the hand-written letter of a famous man or famous men as a
collector’s item. Tuckerman was concerned about the invasion of privacy such
an inspection of his correspondence would entail to his correspondents. Vol.5 no. 145 [B 83]
Amherst 28
June 1868 Dear Sir I have kept your kind letter of the 6th,
by me, in hope that I might be able to do something in supplying your desiderata
in autographs. But it seems hardly possible, from the very beginning of my
scientific correspondence I have carefully preserved it, putting everything
(of importance) into volumes, of which six are bound & two await binding.
The latter I have gone through, without finding anything, either of Boott, or
other, that I could bring myself to spare. Indeed I confess I feel reluctant
to give up to a Society's inspection what was meant only to be private:
though aware of course that this is no real objection. As to the autographs themselves I have
never tried to collect them, any more than pictures (photographs) -
preserving only what chance to come to me, but never seeking to add to them.
Study is too engrossing, & life too short. If we do our best - & who
does - how very little it comes to! I shall willingly go through the
collection of lichens, but with your leave ... prefer to receive it at
some later period; my hands being now full. Will it not serve you as well if
you do not send it to me till next year? I am getting out a work which
has occupied me some years, and try to escape from everythng that will take
me off from it - & nowadays, a great part of any coll'n, however small,
may require microscopical anlaysis, & in this way cost time. Carex torreyi is indeed a species,
which exists, & cannot well be put under any other. My description was
based on 1, a specimen from Torrey (marked C. pallescens in Herb.
Hook. 2, a clump of good specimens from Arctic America, Richardson in Herb.
Hook. (refd to C. pallescens by Boott, when
he went over Hooker's duplicates) - & I afterw'd found the plant in Herb.
Kunze at Leipzig, sent to him by Schweinitz under the never pub'd name of C.
abbreviata. Beside these facts - the plant is in Herb. Acad. Philad. from N. York (presumably) as sent by Torrey - once more as
C. pallescens. Schweinitz got it at Bethlehem Pa. All my spdc'm are
now in Herb. Boott. & nobody now can find it! Should anything turn up or an autographic
char. of interest, I will lay it by: & am truly sorry not to feel able to
send you anything herewith. With respect truly yours Edw. Tuckerman G. W. Clinton Esq. Buffalo Recd June 30. Carex torreyi Tuckerm. is today still an accepted species (synonym C. abbreviata Prescott). It grows in
central-western North America in the lower four western Canadian provinces
and the adjacent States (Montana, N. & S. Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Wyoming, Colorado). Carex pallescens
L. has a northeastern distribution (including NY State) with disjunct
populations to the west coast (USDA Plants Database 2012). “Boott” is Dr. Francis Boott (1792-1863).
Note reference to Carex pallescens
in Clinton’s notebook above. Much or most of Boott’s Herbarium (of Carices)
was sent to Asa Gray, duplicates sent to Clinton in Buffalo, and the rest on
to Elihu Hall, as mentioned above. Hall’s specimens, again, are at the Field
Museum, Chicago. Tuckerman’s publications at this time
(1868) have to do with the United States Geological Exploration of the
Fourtieth Parallel (1871; two page list) and in 1872, the lichens in the
Preliminary Report of the US Geological Survey of Montana (a list of eight
species, mostly from Yellowstone). Other of his publications forthcoming
through the 1870’s are also very short. It seems
apparent that preparation of the publication Tuckerman is referring to is his
Genera Lichenum: An arrangement of the North American Lichens, published in
Amherst in 1872 :8vo. Pp. xv, 281 (Farlow 1887). During
1869, Clinton continued to botanize and, later in the year, to organize the
BSNS Herbarium. In January 1870,
Clinton wrote: “Jan. 21. For some days have been looking up lichens &
fungi, particularly the latter. A few days ago, on Rhus typhinum, on the
plains, found a Calicium (very abundant) which Miss Mary L. Wilson (who has
taken the Lichens in charge) thinks is C. Curtisii. Found it, today, on Rhus
typhina, on the head of Goat Island.” It
is now that explicit reference is made to the interest Miss Mary Wilson has
had in the lichens. On Feb. 6. Clinton
wrote in his journal: “Mr. Peck writes that Mr. Tuckermann, to whom he
submitted them, decides that the Calicium from Rhus typhinum is C. Curtisii,
Tuck. and that another I sent is C. subtile, Ach.” Vol. 6 no. 157 [L 56] [On blue paper] Amherst 29 Feb. 1870 Dear Sir I cannot but thank you for your pleasant
letter of the 17th, & shall be happy to assist the lady to whom you refer
- Miss Wilson - to the extent of my power. If she will lay
aside specimens about which she is doubtful, & when enough is brought
together send it to me by mail, I will examine the same at the earliest moment
possible, & return her my determinations. It will be necessary to mark
the specimens sent similarly to those which she retains, as I can hardly
undertake (unless exceptionally) to return the specimens. It sometimes
happens that I cannot examine such collections for some months after receipt.
- but this will perhaps make no difference. As to the handbook of Lichens, I
cannot take it up till I get my preliminary work on the Genera done. The
latter will hardly be of interest except to experts, but the former I shall
try to make useful to students - & my field is, as you would have it,
North America, excluding Mexico. I feel the same regrets that you express
that Dr. Gray's region is so sharply limited - & though my studies do not
take me often into phaenogamous Botany, it is distressing at times not to
know where to turn for the description of a plant, even with Chapman at hand,
to supplement Gray. This was the case lately with a tree of Southern Texas,
furnishing me not a few Lichens colld by Ravenel, but which I had finally to
give up, as fruitless, the search for. Still I cannot wonder that no more is
yet done. The labour is vast indeed - & the time required too great for
perhaps one man however able he be. Even in my very limited department, I
find work slow - & the material continually getting ahead of me. As to Fungi,
I can only think of Mr. Ravenel (H. W.) of Aiken, S. C., who publishes Fungi
Carol. exsiccati - &, if I mistake not,
offers also Collections of Carolina phanerogams for sale, but him you
probably know. Mr. C. C. Frost of Brattleboro, Vermont, is our New England
Mycologist - & I can think of no other. Mr. Frost is remarkably acquainted with
our Cryptogams generally, I am, Dear Sir with great respect Truly yours E. Tuckermann Hon. G. W. Clinton Recd Feb. 20 Henry
William Ravenel, 1814-1887, a botanist who suffered much after the American
Civil War in Aiken, South Carolina.. He published the Fungi Caroliniani
Exsiccati in five fascicles with 100 specimens in each one between 1852 and
1860. See Pfister, D. H. 1985. Mycotaxon 23:1-139. Alvan
Wentworth Chapman (1809-1899), a physician in Georgia, worked in his spare
time on the botanically unexplored regions near him, south of the limits of
Asa Gray’s manual of the botany of the Northeastern United States. When he
had a manuscript prepared, Chapman made a five month visit to Asa Gray at
Harvard University and eventually had it published in 1860 as the Flora of
the Southern United States. Ivison, Phinney and Co., New York, with a second
edition in 1884, and a third in 1897 (Wikipedia, 2/15/2013). It was the first
botanical regional treatment of the southern United States. Charles Christopher Frost 1815-1880
collected fungi and lichens in New England, in Vermont in the vicinity of
Brattleboro, he would co-author with Tuckerman the catalogue of plants
growing within 30 miles of Amherst, Massachusetts in 1879. He would write
“Further enumeration of New England fungi” Proc. Soc. Nat. Hist. Boston XII
77-81, in 1869 and in June, 1874, Catalogue of Boleti of New England with
descriptions of new species, in the Bulletin of the Society of Natural
Sciences II: 100-105. He also wrote “A catalogue of cryptogamous or
flowerless plants of Vermont: in Archives of Science, Newport, Vermont 1-111
(without fungi). It
is on March first, 1870, that another hand appears in Clinton’s journal, a
refined, delicate hand. It is Mary Wilson’s where she inserts addenda to the orders,
families and species in the numerical catalogue of the BSNS herbarium. On
Oct. 12, the state of the herbarium was noted by Clinton to be: . “Natural
Orders. Genera Species, Sheets. 1 15
19 [different handwriting] [1870] Oct. 17. State of the Herbarium, including the
additions of Oct. 12, by Miss Wilson. Natural
Orders 160. Genera 1977. Species 7,257. Sheets, 11,200 Nov. 14.
Added - " 9
" 9. " 15-17. 18. "
- " 9
" 50 " 151. " 26. - Dec. 1. "
- 8 " 29
" 40 " Dec. 3
-12. " - 4 " 48
" 54 " 10.
" - 5 "
21 " 28 " "
14-17. " 2 52 " 113
" 142 " "
18-31. " 1 1 " 2
" 2 1871. Jan. 1-5.
" - 14 -
42 - 111 " "
7. " - 8 -
58 - 60 " "
10. " 1 41 -
132 - 192 " "
14. " - 2 -
19 - 21 [No
totals.]” The
Buffalo Society began to collect photographs of notable botanists in a large,
leather-bound volume and both Clinton and the Society’s secretary sent notes
around to correspondents for this purpose. The book with photographs still
resides in the Archives of the Research Library at the Buffalo Museum of
Science. The book was evidently prepared by Clinton himself, for its
catalogue and numbering system were written on the first pages in Clinton’s
handwriting. Vol.7 no. 153 [E 78] Amherst 7 Feb. 1871 Dear Sir, I take pleasure in sending you the
pictures - but cannot forbear, at the same time, the customary demand of a
... portrait of yourself. My collection is as yet a small one,
which has grown up by the voluntary gifts of scientific friends; but should I
go abroad again, I think it likely that I shall make it an object to collect
- & in that case, to complete also the American series, as yet very
imperfect. The Genera is in the printer's
hands, and but for delay owing to deficiency of the kind of paper required,
would now be well advanced toward publication. Thank you for your suggestion,
especially as it puts one who never got beyond the baccalaureate in
Legibus in the honourable seat of a judge. But let me say that the
questions upon which the court has to pass are perplexing to a degree, and
embarrassed [?] by no end of conflicting judgments. Add to this that there is
a higher court with full jurisdiction, and a judge as bitter, and impatient
of opposition as he is unquestionably equipped - if not always with wide
views of great principles - at least with authorities and facts, - and I am
sure you will allow that I should be careful in my decisions, and in the
statement of them. They are certain to be received unfavourably in the
quarter named; & to be overruled, if that is possible. On reflection however I do not think I
have erred in the case - if I have not gone too far the other way. The book is rather a report to
Lichenographers of the results of my studies than a book for study. But Mr.
Willey has done some good work for students. You have seen his paper in The
Naturalist for January? And this reminds me to say how greatly I should prize
a card - picture of the excellent lichenist of Buffalo, Miss Wilson - but
know not at all having little if any experience in soliciting such things,
whether she would like to be asked for it. With great
respect Yours Edw. Tuckerman Hon. G. W. Clinton Recd Feb. 10 & ans
inclosing photograph The
“portrait” that Tuckerman sent Clinton, and which is retained in the
photograph album in the Archives at Buffalo, is reproduced at the beginning
of this text. Again,
Tuckerman gives a description of his herbarium and it is probable that he is
mainly referring to his lichen collections. As yet without any particular
insult to his overall health, Tuckerman was contemplating a trip abroad. The
somewhat waggish tone to this letter probably matches the tone of the letter
that Clinton must have written and to which this one was its reply. Tuckerman
attended Harvard Law school and “took his degree in 1839” (Gray 1886), and
so, he is a fellow lawyer to George Clinton. A spurt of confidence on the
part of Clinton is probably due to his recent election as Chief Judge of the
Court - an honor to which Clinton probably made reference in his letter.
Clinton was, at this time and up to this time, in the good graces of nearly
everyone. Before his 1870 election, he had served in the elected office of
Judge of the Superior Court of Buffalo in 1854 - a period of 16 years. Tuckerman’s
reference to a “higher court” may be religious, but it seems more likely that
it is to the scientists, great and the not so established, of his own day
before whom he stands in judgment as a taxonomist.
He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was a corporate
member of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington and “an honorary
member of several of the learned societies and Academies of Europe” (Gray
1886). Tuckerman’s
judges were numerous and formidable. Farlow (1887) refered to “older experts
[who] were too busy attempting to split up genera and species to an
unendurable degree of artificiality, while the younger men, attracted by the
writings of Schwendener, Bornet, and Stahl, were too much interested in
developmental and physiological questions to care much for systematic works.
The Genera Lichenum is a protest against the artificial classificiations
based almost wholly on the spore characters without regard to other equally
important characters, a method first advocated by the Italian lichenologists,
with DeNotaris at their head, and adopted by the Germans and other
continental botanists. Tuckerman advocated the systems of Fries modified by
his knowledge of exotic forms.” Specifically,
though, Tuckerman may be referring to conflicts with the European
lichenologist William Nylander, “the Finnish self-exile living in Paris.”
Tuckerman (correctly) could not always admire Nylander’s narrow species
concept and Nylander (again correctly) found Tuckerman’s notions often too
broad” (Culberson 1964). Tuckerman
was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1868, was a
corporate member of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington and “an
honorary member of several of the learned societies and Academies of Europe”
(Gray 1886). The
Genera Lichenum, considered to be Tuckerman’s greatest work, was “a hard book
to read. It was addressed to experts, not to beginners” (Farlow 1887). Henry
Willey (1824-1907), of New Bedford, Massachusetts, had formed a partnership
with Tuckerman to study lichens from around 1862. The publications referred to were two in
preparation for publication in the American Naturalist later in 1871 - they
were intended for the January issue but, in a letter from Willey to George
Clinton (Jan. 20, 1871) , Willey stated that the
paper as submitted was too late for that issue, and was postponed until later
in the year. The
“January” publication by Willey in Tuckerman’s letter pertains to these two
papers, both popular accounts, one on the use of microscopic characters and
the other on the diagnostic value of spores in lichen identification. Willey,
H. 1871 “Lichens under the microscope.” American Naturalist 4:665-675 f.
139-153. Willey, H. 1871, “The spores of lichens.” American Naturalist
4:720-724. Just
earlier, on the 18th of January, 1871, George Clinton had made his first
contact with Willey, who replied to him on January 20 and Tuckerman seems to
have known of this contact. In Clinton’s letter to Willey, he mentioned Mary
Wilson, for whom Willey sent extra copies of his paper of 1867: “American lichenography.” Proceedings of the
Essex Institute 5:191-196. In Willey’s memoir by Bruce Fink (1914), Fink
commented that this publication “Gives a fairly good list of publications on
American lichens up to 1867.” Willey
had been born in Geneseo, New York, before moving to Massachusetts. When he
furthered his lichen studies in New Bedford, spent a vacation visiting and
collecting in central New York (letter of Jan. 20, 1871). In his letter,
Willey offered to set up an exchange of lichens with Miss Wilson and would
later identify lichen specimens sent to him. In
1872, Tuckerman would finally publish the “Genera Lichenum: An Arrangement of
the North American Lichens. Amherst, 1872. 8vo. Pp. xv, 281” (Fernald 1887).
At one time, the Research Library of the Buffalo Museum of Science had a copy
of Tuckerman’s “Genera.” In the end papers, Mary Wilson wrote her name in her
elegant handwriting. It appears that Tuckerman sent her a personal,
complimentary copy. When Miss Wilson would later leave Buffalo, she did not
take this volume with her but left it behind, in the Museum’s library.
Mary Wilson The portrait of a
woman in the Buffalo photograph book is probably Mary Wilson - perhaps there
is a matching image in the archives of Amherst College, where Tuckerman’s
letters are preserved. Clinton, as he noted at the bottom of the letter
above, did, in fact, send a picture of Ms. Wilson to Tuckerman. However,
Peter Nelson, College Archivist for the Amherst College Archives and Special
Collections in Amherst, Mass. has informed me that nothing resembling Ms. Wilson
could be found among Tuckerman’s other photographs and in his biographical
file (pers. comm. 12/10/2012). Vol. 7 no. 170 [E 58]
Amherst
25 Feb., 1871 Dear Sir, I
am very happy to respond to your inquiry. C. [Carex] glaucodea is a
plant that I had not merely the trouble of describing (appt. to
"Botanical Contributions" by A. Gray, 1868) but the great pleasure
of discovering - & I enclose a poor specimen from my original station.
After publication, the plant proved to exist in several herbaria, and I have
it from N. J., Pa., and Delaware. If your specimens were from Prof. Porter of
Easton, or Mr. C. E. Smith of Phill'a, they are no doubt the thing. But the
specimen sent will I hope enable you to judge Respectfully
& truly yours Edw.
Tuckermann Hon. G. W. Clinton Recd Feb. 28 Carex glaucodea Tuckerman, described pp.
395-396 in Asa Gray “Botanical Contributions,” pp. 345-402 issued July, 1868.
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (June 11, 1867). It
was collected on “Moist trap rocks, summit of Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom.”
It was collected in “Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by Prof. Porter,” and “woods
near Philadelphia, C. E. Smith.” The New Jersey specimen was collected by Coe
Finch Austin, who was not named in the publication. Note
that the “poor specimen from my original station” sent to Clinton may be a
type specimen of Carex glaucodea,
stored in the collections of the Buffalo Museum of Science. In
Clinton’s journal tabulating the progress of entering and mounting specimens
in the BSNS Herbarium, entries were recorded in Mary Wilson’s handwriting for
the “Cuban Moss” citation of November 29, 1871, as well as entries for Dec.
13, 1872 and Mar. 3, 1872 [see Clinton entry for August 26-27]. In
1872 and 1873, quite a number of lichens were recorded in Clinton’s journal
as entered into the Herbarium (see e.g. Clinton’s journal entry for “State of
the Herbarium” on Nov. 9, 1872. Early
in 1872, Tuckerman wrote the following letter to Clinton, mentioning the
affliction that, according to Tuckerman’s biographers, seems to have dogged
him for the rest of his life: Vol.8 no. 79 [H 142]
Amherst 6th Jan. [18]'72 Dear Sir, Your kind remembrance is most cheering. I
was prostrated by sun stroke in September and though the case was not
unfavourable, I am still denied the privilege of study and all continuous reading
or writing. This will explain to you, why this reply reached you by another
hand. But I am very thankful, that withdrawal
from work, and careful living have brought me into
better general health, than I have enjoyed for a long time. Still, recovery
in these cases is extremely slow, and months must yet pass before I can
resume my work, indeed I look forward to a foreign tour before again taking
up study. The book I was carrying through the press
(Genera of N. A. Lichens) is not delayed, and is approaching its completion.
I shall hope to have the pleasure of sending you a copy before very long. The
other work, which I was engaged in writing (Synopsis of N. A. Lichens) must necessarily be postponed. Please to present my kind wishes for the
New Year to Miss Wilson and accept the same from your mo. respect'y & truly Edw. Tuckerman Hon. Judge Clinton Recd Jan. 7 Farlow
(1887) indicated that as the years passed on, “[Tuckerman] was forced to
become more and more secluded in consequence of a deafness which gradually
increased, and at last reached a stage at which conversation became
difficult.” Tuckerman’s succinct and involuted style of writing “... was yet
all his own, and which ws the more pronounced in advancing years, when, owing
to increasing deafness and delicate health, he led a more secluded life.”
(Gray 1886) “A number of years before his death he suffered from a sunstroke
[in September 1871, according to this letter], from which he probably never
quite recovered, and this made it difficult for him to work continuously as
had been his habit” (Farlow 1887). Some 15 years elapsed between the
sunstroke and Tuckerman’s eventual death and during those last 15 years,
Tuckerman managed to write both volumes of his Synopsis of the North American
Lichens. In
1872, Tuckerman intended to continue to “withdraw from work” and “live
carefully” for several more months before resumption of work - indeed, he
indicates in his letter above that it was written in another hand than his
own - perhaps by dictation. He also intended to take a foreign tour. His
necrologies do not mention such a tour (Farlow 1887, nor Culberson 1964), but
Fink (1906) wrote “Thus [Tuckerman’s] meeting with Fries was not merely an
incident of his first European trip, and his visits and excursions with this
greatest lichenist of his time must have been a great inspiration ...”. If Tuckerman had a first European trip, Fink seems to
indicate there was a second one. Gray (1886) hinted at a second trip in his
memorial to Tuckerman, where “In the year 1841 he [Tuckerman] went to Germany
and Scandinavia ... devoting himself, as in a subsequent visit, to
philosophical, historical, and botanical studies.” Where he went and whom he
visited is not as well documented by his biographers as in his 1841 trip. In
a study of 58 patients suffering from heatstroke in 1995 conducted by the
University of Chicago Medical Center “nearly half of the patients admitted to
Chicago-area [Intensive Care Units] for hear stroke died within a year - 21
percent before discharge and another 28 percent after release from the
hospital. Many of the survivors suffered permanent loss of independent
function; one-third had severe functional impairment at discharge, and none
of them had improved after one year” (Wikipedia, “Heat-illness” viewed March
5, 2013). Although
there appear to be no published references to a second European trip by
Tuckerman, his friend Henry Willey refers to one in a letter to Clinton
(April 30, 1873, quoted immediately below). In January of 1872, Tuckerman was
ill and perhaps departed for Europe later in that year. By April of 1873,
Tuckerman was (still) ‘touring’ Europe and perhaps did in fact live in Europe
between early 1872 and some time in 1873: “I was afraid he
[Tuckerman] would not like the publication of the List, though not aware of
any good reason why he should not, and took the pains to send a copy to him
in Europe before I issued it, saying that if he did not like it I would
withhold it. However he spoke very kindly of it, though he said there were
things [in?] he should have wished otherwise.” Clinton
wrote to Willey again after he received Willey’s reply on April 30, such that
on May 18, 1873, Willey replied: “I do not know when
Tuckerman is coming home. He spoke of being away one or two years. I wish he
could come back and do up his manual. He seems to be a very slow worker, and
is I think rather afraid of the thunder of his own reputation, or rather of
the judgement passed on him by European lichenists.” When
Tuckerman would return to Massachusetts, he would undertake Part I of the Synopsis of the North
American Lichens, finished in 1882. Some
indication of what Tuckerman was doing in Europe, such as visiting various
herbaria, may be inferred from some of the notes Tuckerman made under various
species in the Synopsis, part one, such as under Colema limosum Ach. “Our
plant is the same with that of Borrer (E. Bot. Suppl.t.2704, f. 1, & in herb. Taylor!), who had
opportunities of knowing Acharius’s lichen; and the same also as that of
Torssell (herb.!) who knew Fries’s;
from which last, according to Nylander l.c.,
his own does not differ.” This
is the final letter of Tuckerman’s preserved by Clinton in the collection of
Clinton’s correspondents. At this point in Tuckerman’s life, Tuckerman wished
to devote his time to a grand Synthesis of the North American Lichens, the
first volume to appear in 1882 (he was to die four years later of Bright’s
disease, a disease of the kidney, now known as ‘acute or chronic nephritis,’
a disease that would also destroy Tuckerman’s neighbor, the poetess Emily
Dickenson). “ Unfortunately his health failed” (due
to sun stroke) after the completion of the Genera, “and, being the long
acknowledged authority on lichens in this country, much of his time was
absorbed by correspondents who, at times, ill requited his valuable services”
(Farlow 1887). In
a letter to Clinton written by Willey on Feb. 3, 1874, Willey reported that: “Tuckerman returned
[to the United States] in the fall [of 1873], in good general health, but not
he says in a condition to work much.” Even,
it seems, on the interrupted Synopsis. At
any rate, Tuckerman was able to send no note to Clinton (that is known to
this author, or preserved as of this writing) for the rest of Tuckerman’s
life. However, three later letters exist in the Tuckerman archives at
Amherst, Mass., one from Clinton, in 1874, in April, not very long after
Tuckerman came home, and two from Mary Wilson. It is curious that Tuckerman
appears not to have retained any of Clinton’s letters to him (except for the
April 18, 1874 letter transcribed next), but Tuckerman did retain these three
following. The
first of these was written from George Clinton to Edward Tuckerman in 1874,
two years after Tuckerman’s last reply, and after
Tuckerman became ill. The following are reproduced with permission from the
Edward Tuckerman Botanical Papers, Amherst College Archives and Special
Collections.
Buffalo [New York] , April 18, 1874 My dear Sir: In reference to the scrappy specimens
from Springville which I sent to Mr. Willey for determination & which he
returned, with your remarks, not to me but to Miss Wilson, & which seem
to be of some interest to you, they are, of course, yours. But, with your
permission, I will retain them, for the present, to aid me in procuring more.
Springville is 8 - 12 miles from any railroad, and therefore not easily
reached. But I will revisit & explore it more thoroughly, so soon as I can. Miss Wilson, to whom you have been so
kind, and who so well deserves & so highly appreciates your kindness, is, I am grieved to say, in ill health. For several months
past she has been, and for a large part of this season expects to be absent
under treatment. [word crossed out]. [crossed out:
"She has"] Her condition forbids
study. [crossed out: "From"] She has always had & has the exclusive
charge of our Lichenes. I have tried to aid
her by bringing [word crossed out] lichens to her - even as the barbarous
inhabitants of a country and its botanical explorer by collecting &
bringing to him its plants [??] Our collection is at Miss W's house, and I
have access only to a few duplicates. I am no microscopist and have nothing
that deserves to be called a knowledge of the
lichens. The publication of our Botanical Catalogues will probably be
commenced next Autumn; and I especially desire that the Catalogue of our
Lichens should approach completeness. I desire to do all that such an ignoramus as I can do, to assist Miss
Wilson in adding to her Catalogue, which now embraces about 150 species. To
aid her easily & effectually, it is necessary that I should have an
eye-knowledge of our lichens. There is no one on this continent to whom I can apply for assistance in acquiring this
knowledge but yourself. It will prevent me from overwhelming Miss Wilson, on
her return, with loads of rubbish, and enable me to collect intelligently,
and perhaps to augment, somewhat largely, our list. You can hardly imagine
what a pleasure it would be to us to add something, however trifling, to your
[power] to elucidate & give to Science a knowledge
of our lichens. If so good a thing should befall us, please to remember that
I have nought to do with it, and that Miss Wilson, whose mere servant in such
matters I am, must receive the sole credit. How very glad I should be to pick
up a new lichen, were you to name it for her -
Mariae Wilsoni. [this Latin is
incorrect] But, my dear Sir! I know how much Science
justly expects from you, and I would not, for the world, be so selfish, if I
could, as to divert time due to the important matters you have in hand. I
propose, you consenting, to send you specimens to be looked at named. The
specimens may be quite numerous at first, but will very rapidly decrease in
number. I do not ask nor expect you to examine,
microscopically, anything I may send, unless you deem it worthy of
examination. Such answers as these would serve all my
purposes: No. 1. Biatora rubella, a form. No.2.
Lecanora subfusca - ... 3. An immature
Lecidea. 4. Worthless. 5. No lichen. In general, when I find anything which
seems desirable, I collect largely; and, when there is little of it, I take
all. But it must often chance that I can, at the time, get only a single
specimen. In that case, I mark it "no duplicate", to the end that,
if it be really good, I may be so informed & search for more. In every
case, whatever I shall send you is yours, if you
desire it, and to gratify a wish of you for "more" would be a
pleasure indeed. This, my dear Sir! is
my situation. A decent self respect forbids my having anything to do with Mr.
Willey. You are the best and my only resource. But I feel very loathe under
any circumstances, to make a demand upon your time. Whether my request ought
to be acceded to, you are the only judge and I shall be very far from taking
offense at your decision, if adverse, because I know that you are a most
liberal and kindly gentleman. Very truly & respectfully, Your friend & servant, G. W. Clinton Prof. E. Tuckerman P. S. I may visit the North Shore of Lake Superior,
Isle Royale, in 2 or 3 weeks; and, if I do, shall make an omnium gatherum
collection of lichens, which I shall be glad to send you, if you should care
to see it. There
is no reply preserved or to hand. Springville,
in 1860 was a postal village in Concord township in southern Erie County, the
county of the City of Buffalo. Clinton visited it in 1864 on September 21 and
22 to deliver an Agricultural Address to the Erie County State Fair, being
held in the village (G. Clinton’s collecting diary). On those two days he
expressed no interest in lichens but collected vascular plants and ferns. The
“scrappy specimens from Springville” do not appear to have been noted in
Clinton’s collecting diary for 1874 - only two entries were noted for the
first half of the year, one in May, and another in June and neither were in
Springville. Clinton
notes in this letter that he had sent lichen specimens to Henry Willey to
determine. Willey had sent some on to Tuckerman for comment. Tuckerman
returned his replies to Willey, who sent them on - not to Clinton, but to
Mary Wilson. It
seems also evident that Clinton and Willey had a falling out. Note that
Clinton’s desire to have Tuckerman describe a species to be named after Mary
Wilson seems to parallel those he requested, successfully, of fungi authored
by Charles Peck. Yet
again, Clinton’s letter to Tuckerman may have been led by an idea that Willey
himself gave in his letter of February 3 1874, that
Tuckerman, when he returned from Europe, showed little enthusiasm for working
on the Synopsis and chose to spend his time, at least at first, identifying
specimens “for individuals” rather than the scientific public. Certainly in
the Synopsis there were specimens to identify from many such individuals as Ravenel, Coe Finch
Austin, Elihu Hall’s lichens of Texas and Kansas, Drummond’s lichens from
British Canada. By
using Tuckerman, Clinton could avoid Willey as an intermediary and avoid
Willey’s increasingly naive and uncomfortable questions and observations in
early 1873 regarding Mary Wilson of Buffalo. Miss Wilson’s problems seem to
have coincided with Tuckerman’s return from Europe. There
is no record that I could find to explain Clinton’s sudden distaste in
communicating with Willey, and can only assume that Willey’s faux pas was
simply that he replied back to Mary Wilson directly, and did not go through
Clinton. However, in Willey’s letters to Clinton during this time period, he
made abundant reference to an ongoing exchange of correspondence and
specimens with Wilson. That
Willey presumed to intrude between an apparent arrangement between Clinton
and Wilson, that she was to collect and inquire, and he, Clinton, was to
communicate with the experts is not tenable since in other letters from
Willey to Clinton, Willey acknowledged that he wrote regularly to Wilson. The
other issue seems to have been that those were Clinton’s specimens, and that
he collected them and sent them to Willey for determination, who would then send anything interesting on to Tuckerman
for comment. Of course, if Clinton had collected anything interesting, it is
even more important to let the collector know about this - something Willey
did not do, perhaps. There
is also the possibility that Miss Wilson was in fact still collecting
specimens in the field, but she was sending them to Clinton to forward to
Tuckerman for analysis. There are specimens collected by Wilson also from
Michigan and perhaps Clinton sought to have them analyzed, pretending that he
had collected them, although there does not seem to be any evidence that
Clinton himself, during his lifetime, ever travelled west of New York State. As
of the time of this letter, Mary Wilson was “absent,” and Clinton wished to
have a mass of specimens analyzed “on her return.” Although Clinton would
collect, he would take no proprietary interest in the lichenological data
that might arise from these collections - this would be Miss Wilson’s - due
to Clinton’s and presumably Tuckerman’s gallantry, as would befit two
gentlemen. During
the first months of 1874, Mary Wilson was so ill that she could no longer
identify lichens. Clinton wrote: “For several months past [January through
early April] she has been, and for a large part of this season expects to be
absent under treatment...”. It is a little curious
that Clinton’s hand seemed to be shaking when he communicated with Tuckerman
about this, as noted above the two phrases crossed out. Such crossings out
are not frequently met in Clinton’s correspondence with others. Clinton
seemed not to mind that Tuckerman might surmise Clinton was agitated, indeed,
he may have thought that Tuckerman would share in his agitation in a
compassionate and gallant sort of way. However, in this letter Clinton
appears to be distraught. As
early as January, 1874, Henry Willey knew of Miss Wilson’s illness, for he
wrote to Clinton: “I was sorry to learn
by a recent letter from Miss Wilson at [Avon?] that her health has given
out and she is compelled to give up work. I hope her illness is not likely
to prove permanent. I have been much indebted to her especially for
rare specimens, which she is very fortunate in procuring in abundance from almost
all parts of the world. I almost envy her the possession of Russell's
collection.” Note
he discovered her illness from a letter from Miss Wilson herself. What could
have been the source of her ‘rare specimens ... [procured] in abundance from
almost all parts of the world?” One wonders a little whether some of these
excellent specimens came from Tuckerman himself during the year or so he was
in Europe convalescing from his sunstroke of September 1871. Willey
attested to Miss Wilson’s expertise with lichens, in a letter written on
January 28, 1874, Willey wrote: Besides
Tuckerman she is the only contributor to my herbarium, and she has an excellent knowledge of Lichens. Willey
also had the temerity to write: “May I ask what is the nature of Miss Wilson's illness. She has never
spoken particularly of it.” Clinton
wrote that “She has always had & has the exclusive charge of our
Lichenes,” which is perhaps the first express acknowledgement to another
person in writing that Mary Wilson occupied such an important position in the
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences - a sort of unacknowledged Curator of
Lichenology, an office that never existed in the Society. In the three
histories of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, Wilson is never
mentioned as more than a kind of factotum, similar to other women whose
volunteer positions are occasionally mentioned. However, it is to be noted
that Wilson between 1873 and 1874, served on the Board of Managers of the
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences (Robertson & Barcellona 1939). In
a letter to Clinton on Feb. 3, 1874, Willey wrote: “I suspect that I have
been under a misconception in supposing that Miss Wilson expected to give up
all work in lichens, which I have gathered from her letters. I hope there has
been no falling out to disturb the harmony of your Society. I had got the
impression that her health was so seriously affected as perhaps to endanger
her life. I have had but one letter from her this winter.” This
letter seems to contradict the impression Clinton gave in his letter to
Tuckerman, that Miss Wilson had had to give up work in lichens - apparently, she
was continuing to work on them - but from home. This is the only real
indication in the archival information I have consulted that Miss Wilson’s
illness had perhaps more to do with a disturbance in “the harmony” between herself and the Buffalo Society, of which she was a Board
member. Also, Willey freely acknowledges that Miss Wilson felt free to write
to Willey herself, without Clinton as an intermediary. It
is also interesting that the Society’s lichen collections were housed
‘off-campus’ at Miss Wilson’s private residence on 78 Niagara St. in Buffalo.
There, she could work on the lichens, even though apparently unable to use a
microscope while doing other business at the Society’s public ‘rooms,’ such
as arranging the Society’s other collections. As the collections were off
site at her residence, the public could not view them. As
if to underline Miss Wilson’s prostration, she appears to be unable to
venture into the field to make lichen collections in and around Buffalo
(within a 50 mile radius of a point in the City’s center). Perhaps to
emphasize Miss Wilson’s delicate condition, Clinton acknowledged that he
himself wrested these collections from the field from ‘barbarous inhabitants’
in western New York and adjacent Canada. It
is curious that Clinton, President of the Society and its chief botanist had
no access to the lichen collection - as if purposefully distancing himself
from his association with her, even though that association was close, as
Clinton seems to never miss an opportunity to acknowledge in his letters to
other botanists and his political colleagues. It
is also rather startling to see that Clinton was ‘no microscopist’ since he
seems to have given the impression in his letters that he had some expertise
in bryophytes and fungi, even publishing new fungus names, although in the
publications of Charles Peck. Clinton’s
letter of April 18 preceded “publication of our Botanical Catalogues”, slated
for autumn of 1874. Volume one of the Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of
Natural Sciences would commence in 1874 as Henry Willey would publish a paper
in it: Willey,
H. 1874. “Statistics and distribution of North American lichens. Bulletin of
the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences Vol. 1:161-167. When
the Society issued its Bulletins, they had no items of local botanical
interest, although full of articles in other branches of Natural History
relating to other branches of the collections of the Society. The
actual publication of “our Botanical Catalogues” would not occur until much
later, in Volume four, April 1882 - after Clinton had left Buffalo in 1881-2,
having apparently suddenly taken an interest in editing the collected papers
of George Clinton, his great-uncle, in which there was probably little of
natural historic interest (unlike those of his father, DeWitt Clinton). If
Clinton ever did edit these papers during his residence in Albany, New York
during the period between 1881 and 1885, when he died, there might be
evidence of it in the State Archives in Albany, New York. Miss
Wilson had 150 species in her list, as of April, 1874. In the next eight
years she would add ten more. When her list was eventually published by the
Society, she was not listed as the author. David F. Day, to whom authorship
of the Plants of Buffalo and its Vicinity in 1882 would be attributed, wrote
in his introduction: “Early
in the history of the Society, the investigation of our Lichens was
generously undertaken by Miss Mary L. Wilson, then of our city, now of
Haverhill, Mass. The success which attended her efforts in this difficult and
neglected field, is demonstrated by the very
valuable collection of plants of that order, constituting a part of the
Herbarium. Miss Wilson has now enhanced the value of her labors by preparing
with her own hand the list of the Lichens of Buffalo which makes a part of
the Catalogue’ (Day 1882). Somewhere
in these issues the actual ownership of the collections may have arisen. The
lichen collections at Miss Wilson’s house, as well as her lichen library,
seem to have ended up in the Herbarium of the Buffalo Society of Natural
Sciences, as did Clinton’s masses of vascular plants - a fact which inspired
the Society to name the Herbarium after Clinton (the Clinton Herbarium) after
he exited Buffalo. This would include the copy of Tuckerman’s Genera Lichenum
sent after publication and which bears Miss Wilson’s signature. Richard
Harris (1987) gave a detailed accounting of the Museum’s lichen collections
which include specimens accumulated by Wilson when working with Clinton at the
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences - some 2600 specimens or 95% of the
entire collection -acquired before 1885, the year of Clinton’s death. When
Clinton avowed in the present letter that “There is no one on this continent to
whom I can apply for assistance in acquiring this knowledge but yourself” it
is ironical that in the last paragraph of the letter he stated that Henry
Willey, to whom he had been routinely sending specimens for identification
would no longer be his correspondent, as . “A decent self
respect forbids my having anything to do with Mr. Willey.” Only doubtful identifications were sent on
to Tuckerman, presumably as they would assist in his completion of the final
edition of the Synopsis that he was assiduously working on after returning to
Massachusetts from over a year’s absence. Clinton indicated in this letter
that he had terminated his correspondence with Willey. Showing
an exquisite gallantry to Miss Wilson, not to “overwhelm” her in her delicate
condition by burdening her with a load of indiscriminately collected
specimens with “loads of rubbish,” Clinton feels Tuckerman will share his
concern for Miss Wilson’s contributions to science by Tuckerman abandoning
his own labors to take on Willey’s function and identify masses of badly
collected material. Tuckerman himself had been crippled by sun stroke from
which it took years to recover and would be overwhelmed by another disease
before he could finish his own life’s work. And,
as if to add insult to injury, Clinton asks if Tuckerman might name a lichen
which Clinton might have inadvertently collected that might be new to science
with Mary Wilson’s name as an epithet, as Clinton was Miss Wilson’s
‘servant.’ Hopefully,
Tuckerman, knowledgeable in Latin, would correctly formulate the epithet. The
incorrect Latin epithet, “Mariae Wilsoni,” is reminiscent of another species,
apparently published by Clinton, in a paper by the mycologist Charles Peck,
the rust fungus Puccinia mariae-wilsoniae Clinton. Peck, an expert in
botanical Latin, apparently, allowed the epithet to stand uncorrected (to
mariae-wilsoniae). Another Clinton species with the same orthographic error
is Ciderma Mariae-Wilsoni, Clinton (Peck 1883) and presumably this is also
true of Sphaeropsis Wilsoni, Clinton (Peck 1883), Septoria Wilsoni, Clinton,
Pestalozzia Mariae, Clinton,and Hendersonia Mariae, Clinton. Clinton also
named a species after Russell (Microsphaeria Russellii, Clinton) as well as
other associates and colleagues, such as Puccinia Dayii, Clinton, after David
F. Day. Clinton’s
admission that he is “no microscopist” presumably only applies to lichens, for Clinton
seems to be hitherto unchallenged as a bryologist and mycologist as both
fields require a microscope. As Miss Wilson seems to be familiar with this
instrument, one may guess that her reputation as a cryptogamist seems to be
considerably augmented. Clinton
finally proposed to make a mass gathering of lichens from Isle Royale as a
special treat to send to Tuckerman for processing, perhaps reminiscent of
Tuckerman’s willingness to identify specimens from some of the great
expeditions, such as the Wilkes and Hayden Expeditions or H. Mann’s Hawaiian
collections, or Charles Wright’s Cuban ones. In this specific instance, Clinton
is probably making reference to Tuckerman’s “Enumeratio Lichenum a D. Prof.
Agassiz ad Lacum Superiorem, anno 1848, lectorum” published in 1850, in L.
Agassiz’ report on Lake Superior (Agassiz 1850). Tuckerman had done T. G. Lea
a favor in 1849, identifying lichens in the vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio in
1849, and was not loathe to tinker with the flora
around Amherst, Massachusetts, where Tuckerman resided. It
may be this is the request, and Clinton’s inexplicable break with Willey,
mentioned in this letter, that formed the basis for comments made in
Tuckerman’s necrology regarding inappropriate demands made on Tuckerman’s
time, now, when attempting to finish Tuckerman’s life’s-work. In
a letter some two months after Clinton’s note to Tuckerman, Willey wrote to
Tuckerman on June 29, 1874: I find nothing from my
apology to Judge C. but I had a letter last week from Miss. W. in which she
says “that however Judge C. may have written to you or Prof. T. - that it
shall be all forgotten - ill health & some [troubles] have wrought such
changes in him that his friends are filled with dismay & sadness.” Willey
proceeded to give his views of Clinton’s botanical competency, which may have
been low, perhaps recently, due to his distress: “As to the Judge’s
knowledge of fungi I can say nothing. He named a species after me which I
would much rather he would not have done; for I don’t think it right so to
have species when the person complimented has nothing to do with either the
species, genus or order under consideration. But I can’t think he knows much
about lichens when he sends spm after spm of so common a thing as L.
[Lecanora] subfusca. However I hope the whole matter may [disappear].” What
seems particularly interesting is his advice to Mary Wilson: “So far as I know anything about Miss. W. I
acquit her of any [disloyalty] to America; but I expressed to her plainly any
sense of the undesirablness of [resorting] to Europe.” It
seems clear from this letter that Henry Willey played an avuncular role to Mary
Wilson, identifying her difficult specimens, but also somehow made aware of
Mary’s increasing difficulties. In the passage just quoted, there is or seems
to be the premonition that Miss Wilson was about to become estranged from
Buffalo, and indeed she and Clinton would both ultimately leave town, but, as
for Clinton, not until 1881 when he relinquished his position as the
President of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, a position he held
continuously from 1861 to 1881 (Robertson and Barcellona, 1939). Some
note must be made that there appears to have been some justification to the
claims made by Tuckerman and Willey that Mary Wilson was an “excellent
lichenologist.” Clinton, as these letters show, knew nothing of them in field
or herbarium, and yet some doubt persists as to the basis on which to ascribe
her extraordinary ability, other than through her correspondence. In
Harris’ description of the lichen collection in 1987 of the Clinton Herbarium
at the Buffalo Museum of Science, he indicated that 95% of the total
collection was made before 1885, when George Clinton died (Harris 1987). “Of
this number about one third were collected in the Buffalo area by Clinton and
Mary L. Wilson .... This very thorough collecting provides very important
baseline data on the lichen flora as it existed in the 1870s. An equally
intensive survey of the present day flora would give a picture of the changes
over more than one hundred years.” This
data would represent the City of Buffalo and the area of the circle transcribed
from a 50 mile radius from its center before the city became industrialized -
a process notoriously damaging to natural lichen populations exposed to
atmospheric concentrations of sulphur dioxide. Were such modern surveys to be
taken, it would seem that data would be compared to data based on Mary
Wilson’s collections at the Buffalo Museum of Science. Harris
indicated that in the Clinton Herbarium collections “For eastern North
America much of the material comes from the herbarium of Henry Willey ...”
(Harris 1987), indicating exchanges between Wilson and Willey - who was
probably more of a mentor and confidante to her than Edward Tuckerman in
certain ways. In a note by
Harris (1987) on the composition of the lichen collections in the Clinton Herbarium
of the Buffalo Museum of Science, it was stated that one third of the
specimens (totalling 2600 collected before 1885), the “second largest block of specimens,
came from the herbarium of C. Leo Lesquereux (1806-1889), noted bryologist
and paleobotanist. They are all from Europe antedating his emigration to the
United States. Schaerer’s Lichenes Helvetici constitute
the bulk of them, probably complete up through fascicle 22, no. 550 (1847).
Lesquereux was forced to leave Switzerland in 1848. In addition there are
other collections from Schaerer’s herbarium, c. 50 specimens collected by
Lesquereux himself, two by Agassiz and a number with no data. I would guess
that Lesquereux sold the collection to Clinton when pressed for money”
(Harris 1987). As mentioned
above, Tuckerman probably sent Wilson a copy, after 1872, of his “Genera
Lichenum,” which Wilson had left behind when she left Buffalo.
At one time, the Research Library of the Buffalo Museum of Science had a copy
of Tuckerman’s “Genera.” In the end papers, Mary Wilson had written her name
in her elegant handwriting. The book has unfortunately relatively recently
been taken away from the Museum’s collections, along with the copy-book of
David F. Day in which there were copies of Day’s correspondence with her
after she left Buffalo for Haverhill, Massachusettes some time before 1882.
It seems unlikely that the Museum would have a copy of Part One of
Tuckerman’s Synopsis of 1882, mentioned by Wilson in the letter above, since
by that year she had departed Buffalo for Haverhill (Day 1882). Note
that by her letter to Tuckerman of January 12, 1878, the Russell lichen
collection, which had been given to her, and the Lesquereux collection had
not been incorporated into the Society’s botanical collections. When
Mary mentions “My lichen list of this region reached about one hundred and
sixty species, and among them I believe you found
but one that was new,” it is perhaps one that was new to science, not to her
list. This may perhaps be associated with Clinton’s earlier letter to
Tuckerman where he pleads with him to name a new species after her -
something it does not appear that Tuckerman actually did. No species with
such an epithet occurs in the species lists to Parts I and II of the
Synopsis. In
the Appendix (p. 131) of Tuckerman’s Synopsis, Part II, of 1888, written by
Henry Willey who had seen specimens in Tuckerman’s herbarium, occurred a species “L[ecidea] glaucospora Tuckerm. herb. ad int., perhaps does not
differ, except in the at length blackening thallus. On rocks, New York, Miss
Wilson.” The species forms a group related to L. cyrtidia and “More material
is needed for the study of these forms.” In Wilson’s lichen species list for
Buffalo and vicinity, Lecidea glaucospora Tuck. is
listed, and this is likely the species ‘new’ to her list. For the first four
months of 1874, Clinton wrote Tuckerman that Mary Wilson was absent and
“under treatment,” being too ill to study lichens and “absent,” from Buffalo,
or from the Society’s collection rooms. Clinton indicated she would be gone
for “a large part of this season,” presumably the growing or collecting
season, perhaps up until the end of autumn of that year. She had become ill
toward the end of 1873. When Wilson did
return to work on the Buffalo Society’s collections, it would be on the shell
collections, and, between 1874 and the end of 1877 she would also be gone “with
frequent & long absences of my own.“ Four
years later, Mary Wilson wrote the following to Tuckerman - she was still
living in the City of Buffalo in 1878: 78 Niagara St.
Buffalo 12th Jan. 1878 Dear Prof. Tuckerman: I am indebted to you for your letter of
the 8th, and its correction of the Mexican lichen, which I remember well. If
your specimen is so imperfect, you should surely have all that can be sent,
so I take pleasure in enclosing ours, which is very fragmentary too. Entomology I have never attempted,
but some years ago finding that the state of my health would allow of only
the most limited use of the microscope, and that it was needful that I should
make a change of interest, and finding also, that by undertaking the
management of a collection of "shell" that I could be of some use
to our Society, I turned my attention to the Mollusca. But I recall with peculiar delight the
days when the wonders of the Lichen world possessed me, and I cherish with
great affection my collections, and among my books I prize nothing more than
"Genera Lichenum" and the "Synopsis" was such a friend
when I was trying to grope my way alone, not imagining ever that I ought to
ask for help, that I prize it too, well worn & marked as it is. I am hoping from season to season for the
quality of ability needful to enable me to incorporate with our Society's
Lichen herbarium the collection which Mr. Russell left me, and also
Lesquereux's which is now ours. Mrs. Russell gave me your letters to Mr.
R. with the Collection; I began to look them over and found some mingling of
friendly with scientific talk, and laid them aside with the feeling that I
ought perhaps to inform you that they were in my hands. You were then abroad,
and since with frequent & long absences of my own, I have almost forgotten
about them. I will send them to you if you desire them, but otherwise I
should be pleased to keep them. We have had no very cold weather as yet,
our winters are hardly so severe as yours in
Massachusetts, English Ivies flourish out of doors with us. My lichen list of this region reached
about one hundred and sixty species, and among them I believe you found but
one that was new. Very truly yours Mary L. Wilson To Prof. Edw. Tuckerman The specimen from
Mexico was most likely one collected by Charles Mohr, who collected many
specimens “mainly around Orizaba” (Harris 1987) and for whom Wilson was
beginning to manage identifying his Alabama lichen specimens. Working
on the Society’s shells would, of necessity, remove her from the Herbarium,
or the botanical cabinets. One of the collateral items in this arrangement is
that she would also be removed from working with Clinton himself or working
directly with him in a common room where all the cabinets were stored
together. Miss Wilson’s reference
to Entomology perhaps is in allusion to the collections of Coleman T.
Robinson, who had died in the spring of 1872. Mr. Robinson was “the original
curator of conchology” (Goodyear 1994). “... he was
considered by his collaborators as the originator of the BSNS, its
organization being due to his initiative. His generous donations, especially
in the fields of conchology and entomology, were the beginning of the present
collections. He continued to hold the position of curator of conchology until
his death in 1872 ...” Upon Robinson’s death, “he bequeathed [to the BSNS]
the sum of $10,000, plus his scientific collections and apparatus, and his
splendid scientific library containing many rare books including valuable
first editions. He had a world-wide reputation as a naturalist.” (Goodyear
1994). In 1872, The New York Evening Post wrote “Such men as the Baron von
Humboldt, in consideration of his [Robinson’s] attainments, were pleased to
accord him their friendship, and natural science acknowledges his extended
researches in her domain.” In 1873, Clinton delivered his annual
address as President of the BSNS: “The collections bequeathed to us [by
Coleman T. Robinson] embrace some valuable insects but consist mainly of shells....
They have been arranged by Mrs. George L. Squier and Miss Mary L. Wilson and
will when properly incased form a most attractive
portion of our cabinet.” (Robertson and Barcellona, 1939). Note that in
Peck’s publication of the fungi of western New York (Peck 1883), there is a
fungus species described by Clinton, Sphaeropsis Squieriae Clinton (Reg. Rep.
28, p. 55), probably named after Mrs. Squier. “In the report of the Director, Augustus
R. Grote, dated March 3, 1876, we find Miss Wilson still actively interested
in the shell collection and endeavoring to increase the number of species
represented.” “Exchanges have been effected with
Mrs. Agnes Stone and Mrs. Squier through Miss Wilson’s efforts.” The report
on the shell collection indicates that 6,000 shells were present, but as
Robertson and Barcellona write “This claim to species is modified in the
report for 1877, the number being placed at 5,000. These Miss Wilson had been
arranging in the cabinet, many of the smaller shells having been placed in
glass tubes and labeled in accordance with the method adopted by the
Smithsonian Institution” (quotes by Robertson and Barcellona 1939). “The
story as told by Mr. Grote in his report of February 13, 1878, is much the
same. Miss Wilson had completed the general arrangement of the Robinson
Collection in the cabinet.” Clinton died on
September 7, 1885, while walking and making botanical observations in the
Albany of his childhood, after having left Buffalo. He died in the Rural
Cemetary in Albany. The obituary published in the New York Times (September
8, 1885) stated that Clinton was living with his wife in a boarding house in
Albany. The Times reported that “two
or three years ago he had a slight stroke of paralysis and his sudden death
is attributed to apoplexy” (i.e., stroke). His two sons in Buffalo were
expected to come to Albany to retrieve Clinton’s body and inter him in
Buffalo. Mrs. Clinton was also to accompany them. Could the source of
Clinton’s distress in April of 1874 be attributed to stroke, or some other
event, such as the loss of a child? A few months
previous to Clinton’s death in Albany, Mary Wilson again wrote to Tuckerman.
She was collecting in Florida, far away from Buffalo and had been for some
time, apparently leaving Haverhill, Massachusetts where she resided after
leaving Buffalo at or near the same time Clinton did. She indicated she would
be in Florida for some years in the future. This was actually the beginning
of years of wandering in the southern states and Europe, which puts one in
mind of Willey’s advice to Miss Wilson, in the letter of June 29, 1874
mentioned above. [Is?] Land
Fla. [=IsLand?] June 5:
/[18]85. Dear Dr. Tuckerman, I am very sorry that you have been so ill,
and I hope that you are now quite well again. I would, on no account, have you ever taxed
to determine Lichens for me. You must know how well I have [fared?] for ...
since I have been here. I had when I came 81 of Austins species collected in
Florida, besides as many more sub-tropical specimens from other sources. What
I have not been well able myself to decide on I have
sent to Mr. Sprague, as you have known. He is so much better able that I to
select what may be ... & prepare it for your examination, that I think
the arrangement of this past year has been the best possible under all the
circumstances. Mr. Sprague has been evidently pleased to get things from
here. You know what a good correspondent he is, and I have not only enjoyed
my collecting but has observations & pleasure
over what has been sent. Mr. Higginson has been somewhat ... thereby also,
for I have had duplicates to spare for him, too, sometimes. I have
exceedingly enjoyed looking for Lichens in Florida, though very much baffled
often because nothing is at hand, and I have had difficulties in getting to
good places. The region is a rich one I believe, but I shall carry away less
than I ought to. I have not found more than 120 good determinable species. The season in which I can collect here is
brief: Heat, snakes & insects must ever deter me here usually after
... When I shall leave here next
October, I shall send Mr. Sprague a List of all I have collected, and should
it seem interesting then, and of account, I will
send you a copy also. There has been a narrow strip of land at
the river bordered on one side by a Cypress swamp, where I could easily
collect, and I think I have exhausted that place, but it is the only spot of
which I can say so much. I found Biatora Floridana [underlined]
abundantly incrusting decaying palms near the ground. While Arthonia ...
spora & Cal. [Calicium] subtile were equally common on live palms.
Biatoria choloma, [Mart.?]... & H. [=Heterothecium] Augustini always
abounded on live or dead palm leaves. Parmelia perlata & P. leucochlora
also common on live oaks. Acolium formicum also, & a Thelotrema which
seems not to be in your Synopsis as well as The. subtile
& Graphis substriatula on live oak. But much more could be said of these
plants in their haunts, and the zest with which I am led to seek for them
heightens all charms of woods & scenery. No one here seems to have found Florida
woods so attractive & beautiful who has not had the Lichens to look for. Probably I shall be obliged to remain
much of the time in Florida for a few years to come, and I shall hope to
collect in various places. Next winter will probably be passed in St.
Augustine. Your truly & gratefully, Mary L. Wilson In
Tuckerman’s previous letter to George Clinton (15 Dec. 1866), Tuckerman wrote
advice to the novice collector, hence, to Mary Wilson: “As to Florida, if the collector goes to
the extreme South, or to the Keys, everything lichenose will be worthy of
note, the vegetation there touching that of Cuba - and if he will merely do
up such species in scraps of paper & keep them in a bag or box, without
pressing, they can all be made right, and turned to account, when he returns. The North West of Florida is rather
better known, but he will do well to collect, if he finds it convenient.” Charles
James Sprague (1823-1903) was a correspondent of Tuckerman’s and some of his
letters are preserved in the Tuckerman Botanical Papers, 1816-1886, Amherst College
Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College, Massachusetts. He was the
son of the New England poet Charles Sprague (1791-1875), who worked for the
State and Globe Bank for 45 years, hence referred to as the “Banker Poet of
Boston.” His son C. J. Sprague “became Curator of botany at the
Boston Society of Natural History (“Charles Sprague (poet)” Wikipedia, viewed
March 6, 2013). C.J. Sprague, the son,
wrote the “Lichens of Essex County, Massachusetts” [Title from caption,
published in “The Flora of Essex County,” by John Robinson, Essex Institute,
1880, (lichens) p. 149-155, the list for lichens produced by Sprague for the
publication by Robinson. Sprague in 1879 also produced “The spores of the
lichens of the United States, figured by Charles J. Sprague;” a text of 104
pages. Storrow
Higginson was a correspondent of Tuckerman’s and some of his letters to
Tuckerman are preserved at Amherst College in the Tuckerman Botanical Papers.
“There is a set of Mary Wilson’s Florida collections in the bound herbarium
of Storrow Higginson [at the New York Botanical Garden]” (pers com. Richard
Harris, 2013). Edward Tuckerman died
on March 15th, 1886, less than a year after Mary Wilson wrote this last
letter to him. Part II of the Synopsis was finished and submitted to the
printer by Henry Willey in 1888 (note in Preface): “I give his manuscript
just as left by him.”. In the Synopsis of the North American
Lichens: Part II (1888), Tuckerman wrote under Graphis leucopepla,
Tuckerm. (p. 126) “Trees,
Florida, Miss Mary L. Wilson.” Under Graphis scolecitis, Tuckerm. (p. 125)
“Florida, Miss Wilson.” Under Buellia Schaereri, De Not. p. 98, “Western New
York, Miss Mary L. Wilson.” Buellia dialytia (Nyl.) Tuck. p. 96, “Hemlock
bark, Western New York, Miss Mary L. Wilson. Biatora decipiens (Ehrh.) Fr.,
p. 13, “Niagara Falls, Miss Mary L. Wilson.” There is also Platygrapha
phlyctella Nyl., “On bark, Florida, Miss Wilson, in
herb. Tuckerm” a note by Willey in the Appendix to the 1888 Synopsis. cf. Miss Biddlecome,
Ohio. p. 45, Biatora inundata Fr.; also Ohio Cladonia mecilenta (Ehrh.)
Hoffm. in Part. I p. 254. Cladonia squamosa, Ohio p. 246. Also
Cladonia delicata, Ohio. p. 247. Pertusaria leioplaca Ohio p. 215. Lecanora
tartarea p. 196 Ohio. part I p. 210 Rinodina
milliaria, “Western New York, Miss Wilson.” Dr. J. Porter; Clinton
Collema limosum “New York, Clinton.” p. 150. Collema crispum Ohio
p. 150 Miss. Biddlecome. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Nick Harby of the
Arthur & Kriebel Herbaria,
Dept. of Botany & Plant Pathology, LITERATURE CITED Agassiz,
L. 1850. Lake Superior: Its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals,
Compared with Those of Other and SImilar Regions. Gould, Kendall and Lincoln.
Boston. Culberson,
W. L., ed. Reprint 1964. 2 Vols. The Collected Lichenological Papers of
Edward Tuckerman. Cramer. Weinheim. Wheldon & Wesley, Ltd. New York. Day,
David F. 1882. The Plants of Buffalo and Its Vicinity. Bulletin of the
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, Vol. 4, April 1882, pp. 65-152. Doodell, H. H. 1886. see citation under Tyler, below. Dupree,
A. Hunter. 1959. Asa Gray 1810-1888. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Eckel,
P. M. & N. Harby. 2011. Correspondence of John Hussey (1831–1888) and
George William Clinton (1807–1885). Notes on the early herbarium of Purdue
University. Res Botanica, Missouri Botanical Garden Web site: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/ResBot/hist/corrauth/HusseyClinton/1_HusseyClinton.htm Ewan,
Joseph. 1952. Frederick Pursh, 1774-1820, and His Botanical Associates.
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 96(5), Oct. 15: pp.
599-628. Ewan,
Joseph A., and Nesta Ewan. 1981. Biographical dictionary of Rocky Mountain
naturalists. Regnum Vegetabile 107:1-253. Farlow,
W. G. 1887. Memoir of Edward Tuckerman. 1817-1886, “Read before the National
Academy, April, 1887.” National
Academy of Sciences. pp. 17-28. Fink,
Bruce. 1904. Two Centuries of North American Lichenology. Proceedings of the
Iowa Academy of Science. II: pp. 11-38. Fink,
Bruce. 1906. Edward Tuckerman - a brief summary of his work. The Bryologist
Vol. IX(1) pp 1-2. Fink,
Bruce. 1914. Henry Willey, - a Memoir. Mycologia vol. VI (2) pp. 49-53. Goodyear,
George F. 1994. Society and Museum. A History of the Buffalo Society of
Natural Sciences 1861-1993 and the Buffalo Museum of Science 1928-1993.
Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences Vol. 34. Gray,
Asa. 1863. Enumeration of the species of Plants collected by Dr. C. C. Parry,
and Messrs. Elihu Hall and J. P. Harbour, during the Summer and Autumn of
1862, on and near the Rocky Mountains, in Colorado Territory, lat. 39* - 41*. Proceedings
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Vol. 15(1863): pp. 55-80. Gray,
Asa. 1886. Edward Tuckerman. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, new series xiii., 539: pp. 491-498. Harris,
Richard C. 1987. The lichen collection of the Clinton Herbarium, the Buffalo
Museum of Science (BUF). Evansia pp. 46-48. Harvard
University Herbaria. 2002. Francis Boott (1792-1863) Papers. pp. 2. (http://www.huh.harvard,edu/libraries/archives/BOOTT.html),
viewed Nov. 8, 2011. Peck,
Charles Horton. 1883. Fungi. in Day, David F. The
Plants of Buffalo and its Vicinity - Cryptogamae. Vol. 4 (4) Bulletin of the
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. Buffalo. pp. 174-235. Robertson,
Imogene C. and Edmere C. Barcellona, eds. 1939. Seventy-five Years. A History
of The Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences 1861-1936. Ed. 2. Bulletin of the
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. Buffalo. 1939. Thomson,
J. W. 1965. review of “The collected Lichenological
Papers of Edward Tuckerman. Volume I by Edward Tuckerman. The Bryologist Vol.
68(1):134-135. Tuckerman,
Edward. 1843. 8vo. Pp. 21 [privately published, Gray 1886]. Enumeratio
methodica Caricum quarundam. Species recensuit et secundum habitum pro
viribus disponere tentavit Eduardus Tuckerman. Schenectady, 1843. Tuckerman,
Edward. 1849. Observations on American species of the genus Potamogeton, Linn. American Journal of
Science and Arts. VII, N.S., pp. 347-360. Tuckerman,
Edward. 1858-9. Supplement to an Enumeration of North American Lichenes. Am.
Jour. Sci. & Asts. XXV, N.S., 422-430, May, 1858, and XXVIII, 200-206,
Sept. 1859 (Fowler 1887). Tuckerman,
Edward. 1866. Lichens of California, Oregon, and the Rocky Mountains; So Far
as Yet Known. J. S. and C. Adams. Amherst. Tyler,
Prof. 1886. Edward Tuckerman. I. Biographical Sketch. Botanical Gazette. Vol.
II(4): pp. 73-74.
Note that the author of this paper was actually H. H. Doodell
(Culberson 1964). Weber,
William A. 1997. King of Colorado Botany, Charles Christopher Parry,
1823-1890. University Press of Colorado. Willey,
H. 1886. Edward Tuckerman. II. Bibliographical Sketch. Botanical Gazette Vol.
II(4):pp. 74-78. “A sketch of Tuckerman’s life, the
first two pages of which are not written by Mr. Willey” (Fink 1914). Nor were
they written by Tyler (see Tyler citation above), but by H. H. Doodell
(Culberson 1864). Note also the addenda by Willey: “Tuckerman bibliography.”
Botanical Gazette Vol.11(7) July 1886: p. 182. The
proper citation of this electronic publication is: "Eckel,
P. M. 2012. Correspondence of Edward Tuckerman and G. W. Clinton. Res
Botanica, Missouri Botanical Garden Web site. http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/ResBot/hist/corrauth/TuckermanClinton/1_TuckermanClinton.htm.
[and lastly cite the date you actually read the
publication]." |
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