Philadelphia Trees and Botanical Art in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries
In 1818, Penn professor William P. C. Barton published his Compendium Florae Philadelphicae, in which he described 72 trees as indigenous and naturalized in Philadelphia. Barton's primary resources were handsomely illustrated books by European authors, and his references to the botanical art in these works added significantly to the brief descriptions in his flora.
The Academy's Ewell Sale Stewart Library owns copies of these famous botanical treasures, and Alfred E. Schuyler, the Academy's Curator of Botany Emeritus, has selected a number of them to tell the story of the resources available to Barton and other early Philadelphia botanists for plant identification. They are still valuable today to confirm the identities of late 18th and early 19th century Philadelphia trees.
The following library botanical treasures are presented here:
- Abbot's Lepidoptera (1797)
- Barton's Compendium (1818)
- Barton's Medicinal Plants (1817-18)
- Catesby's Natural History (1731-43)
- Curtis' Botanical Magazine (1808)
- Dillenius' Hortus Elthamensis (1732)
- Hoffmann's Willows (1785-87)
- Lambert's Pines (1838)
- A. Michaux's Oaks (1801)
- F. Michaux's Oaks (1817)
- F. Michaus's Sylva (1819, Paris)
- F. Michaux's Sylva (1817-19, Philadelphia)
- Muhlenberg's Willows (1806)
- Plukenet's Phytographia (1769)
- Trew's Selected Plants (1750-73)