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The
Correspondence of
John
Hussey (1831-1888) and
George
William Clinton (1807‑1885). Notes on the early herbarium of Purdue
University: Part 2.
P. M. Eckel, P.O. Box 299, Missouri Botanical Garden,
St. Louis, Missouri, 63166‑0299; email: patricia.eckel@mobot.org
Nick Harby, Arthur & Kriebel Herbaria, Dept. of
Botany & Plant Pathology, Purdue
University, West Lafayette, Indiana;
email: nickharby@yahoo.com
The Specimens
There
are two herbaria curated by the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Purdue University,
West Lafayette, Indiana:
The Kriebel Herbarium (PUL) possesses around 75,000 specimens,
70,000 of them vascular plants, the most important of which are those by J.C.
Arthur and A. A. Lindsey, and R. Kriebel, after whom the herbarium was named
(Thiers 2011). An important collector represented in the Kriebel Herbarium is
Charles Deam (see below). This herbarium also has 2,000 specimens of algae,
bryophytes and fungi other than rusts (Purdue University
website 2011). At the present time, the Kriebel Herbarium website attributes
the beginnings of this herbarium to one of its professors, Stanley Coulter
(1853-1943) who, together with his brother John M. Coulter (1851-1928), “were
pioneer botanists in Indiana, and published the first flora of Indiana in
1881” (Kriebel Herbarium web-site, http://www.btny.purdue.edu/herbaria/Kriebel/).
The
present herbarium (PUL) “was dedicated and renamed in honor of Ralph Kriebel
in August 1961” in recognition of the 10,886 specimens Kriebel accumulated
during his lifetime and which comprise a large part of the present herbarium.
Ralph Kriebel, teacher, quarry-man, botanist and
conservationist, made many plant collections in Lawrence
County in southern Indiana, where he worked for the Soil
Conservation Service (SCS) from 1934-1942. His primary botanical mentor and
field companion was Charles C. Deam, author of the second and much enlarged
Flora of Indiana (1940).
Kriebel transferred to the Lafayette office of the SCS in 1942, then
joined the staff of the Agricultural Extension Service of Purdue University
in 1943. After his death, his herbarium of 10,886 specimens was purchased by
the Purdue Agricultural Experiment Station, and added to the existing
herbarium started by Stanley Coulter. The combined herbarium was dedicated
and renamed in honor of Ralph Kriebel in August 1961. The Kriebel Herbarium
was subsequently transferred in 1986 from the Department of Biology to the
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, where it is now maintained.
Although the Kriebel Herbarium at Purdue owes its name and
important collections of the Indiana flora
to Ralph M. Kriebel (1897-1946), it has been in existence since the very
beginning of Purdue
University. As Purdue started classes for the first
time in 1874, only six professors had been hired to teach. One was John Hussey, botany professor. He brought his personal plant collection to
assist his students, and Hussey’s specimens are still in the Kriebel
Herbarium to this day.
By 1897, professor Stanley Coulter (1853-1943) had become
director of the biological laboratories at Purdue. Stanley Coulter and his
brother John M. Coulter (1851-1928) were pioneer botanists in Indiana, and published the first flora of Indiana in 1881.
Stanley Coulter was the only true botanical mentor of renowned Hoosier
botanist Charles C. Deam. John M.
Coulter became president of Indiana University (1891-1893) and professor at the University of Chicago (1896-1925).
The
Arthur Herbarium (PUR) with 101,000 specimens has a worldwide specialization
in the Uredinales (plant rusts), one of the largest collection of its kind in
the world. It represents many more collectors than the Kriebel, including
those of J. C. Arthur (1850-1942) the first head of the Department of Botany
and Plant Pathology, after whom this herbarium was named. The concentration
of this important group of organisms for research, teaching and reference is
an important example of Purdue
University’s prominence
in fields associated with agriculture.
One
significant representation of specimens in the Arthur Herbarium was that of
Charles Horton Peck, a correspondent of George W. Clinton of the Buffalo
Society of Natural Sciences in Buffalo,
New York. The Arthur Herbarium
possesses several of Peck’s type specimens. The Arthur Herbarium also
possesses an extensive representation of mycological specimens from H. W.
Ravenel, who prepared an extensive correspondence with Clinton. D. C. Eaton, a noted American
pteridologist, was also a correspondent of Clintons and a number of his specimens are
represented in the Kriebel Herbarium.
It
was while databasing the specimens from the two herbaria, and seeking more
detailed information regarding the collectors represented on the labels that
the second author discovered the Clinton donation and notified the first
author, who is editor of the G. W. Clinton Correspondence. This paper is the
result of a collaboration based on a shared interest in the history of
American botany.
In
the G. W. Clinton donation to the Purdue University Herbarium (PUL) are many
that do or do not correspond to letters Clinton
retained as he wrote to various botanists while amassing the specimens of the
Clinton Herbarium at the Buffalo Museum of Science in Buffalo,
New York, and the New York State Herbarium
in Albany, New York. From the Purdue labels, a
partial list of correspondents includes:
Michael
S. Bebb
Joseph
Blake
D.
Clarke*
Captain
G. Frazier*
A.
P. Garber
H.
Eggert*
George
Engelmann
Elihu
Hall
Leo
Lesquereux
Elihu
S. Miller
Charles
Mohr
John
Paine
Edward
Palmer*
Charles
F. Parker
E.
Roth*
Charles
E. Smith
Edward
Tuckerman.
The
asterisks indicate names without associated letters in the Clinton Archives
and some may indicate specimens, such as Edward Palmer’s, that derived from
other contemporary botanists, such as from the duplicates of Asa Gray or John
Torrey.
An
example of a Clinton specimen that appears to
have been a duplicate of specimens sent to Clinton
in Buffalo, New York,
includes a fern from South
Africa. Clinton
was corresponding with Michael Shuck Bebb (1833 - 1895) of the State of Illinois, an important student of the American
Salicaceae, and Peter MacOwan (1830 -
1909), one of the foremost botanists of South Africa. Although Clinton received
specimens collected by both of these authors, he also received duplicate
specimens from both of them.
For example,
in the Kriebel Herbarium of Purdue University (PUL) there is a specimen of Adiantum ethiopicum Thunb. from South Africa made by the Rev.
Leopold Richard Baur (1825-1889) from the donation to the University of
specimens by George Clinton. Baur was a
Moravian missionary stationed in 1873 at Baziya, “between the upper reaches
of the Bashee and Umtata Rivers, in the Transkei” (Gunn & Codd 1981), when Baur
began sending specimens to MacOwan, then teaching at Gill College
in Somerset East. “... thus began a long association with MacOwan and over
the years many novelties and interesting records from this little-known area
were sent to Kew.” (Gunn & Codd 1981).
(Digital image below of PUL specimen by Nick Harby.)
Another
specimen (below) from the Clinton
donation to PUL was collected by Paul
von Kühlewein (1798-1870). and is a duplicate of Clinton’s
collections at the Buffalo Museum of Science: written in Clinton’s handwriting: Equisetum
litorale Kuehl. In Ruprecht Symbolae etc. 1846
pag. 215" which possibly is a type specimen (Petropoli is a reference to
Leningrad
(St. Petersberg)).
For
more information on Paul von
Kühlewein (click here)
Other
interesting specimens from the Clinton donations
shed light on other issues, such as the significance of Goat Island, at Niagara Falls, New
York, in the history of botany. This island, a
favorite tourist destination for centuries, is representative of the
extraordinary biological uniqueness of the cataracts and the seven mile gorge
associated with them.
For
example, two type specimens derive from the Goat Island flora, and are part
of the Clinton donation to Purdue University:
Aecidium allenii Clinton, part of the
type The packet reads “”On Shepherdia [‘canadensis’ written in pencil], Buffalo, N.Y. G. W.
Clinton. The label is hand written in apparently Clinton’s handwriting. A packet curated
next to the type has the same information, but the locality is “Goat Island, Buffalo, N.Y.”
Goat Island is in Niagara Falls, Niagara County, N.Y. and is probably an isotype. There are no
dates written in, hence the two BUF specimens need to be examined to verify
the year to determine whether these, too, are isotypes.
Another specimen
(below) of Aecidium allenii at
Purdue was made in 1885, the year the Niagara Reservation was officially
established, on June 29 by Clara E. Cummings, also on Shepherdia canadensis on Goat Island, Niagara
[“N.Y.” written in pencil]. The Cummings specimen, according to the packet,
derived from the Herbarium of A. B. Seymour. Clinton died on September 7, 1885 and,
although perhaps collected at the type locality, and perhaps on the very
shrub, it is not part of the type specimen.
Puccinia clintonii Peck. There is a Puccinia clintonii Peck type specimen (below) also, as the
Aecidium allenii specimen cited
above, curated in the Arthur Herbarium of Purdue University.
The packet reads “On Pedicularis
canadensis. Goat Island, Niagara, N. Y.
G. W. Clinton. Oct.” which would indicate that a specimen at the Buffalo
Museum of Science collected in the same place by Clinton, on October 9, 1875, is perhaps the
holotype specimen for the species, and the specimen at Purdue is an isotype
(or they are all isotypes).
The Arthur rust fungus collection of the Arthur Herbarium has other
specimens that were, according to the labels, collected by G. W.
Clinton. However, it is hard to say whether Clinton
collected them as rust and sent them to Purdue or that the Clinton vascular plant collection that got
here in 1878 was later found to have some rust and a portion was transferred
to the Arthur collection later. One
would be surprised how much of the Arthur collection is actually a rusted
leaf that was found on a “normal” herbarium specimen. This is a demonstration
of how prevalent the rusts really are. Here are some examples (below) of a Clinton collected
specimen in the Arthur rust collection - note that the handwriting appears to
be that of J. C. Arthur:
One
curious set of specimens concerns another correspondent of G. W. Clinton, and
that is Charles Mohr of Mobile,
Alabama. One of Mohr’s
specimens (PUL 4429), a collection of Eleocharis
palustris, was collected on July 4, 1864, at West
Fowl River,
Mobile Bay, Alabama.
The collection site would have been within sight of where the Civil
War Battle of Mobile Bay was fought a month later, on August 5, the
collecting site near the three Confederate forts that guarded the entrance to
Mobile Bay. A Confederate fleet under Adm.
Franklin Buchanan was guarding the Bay while the Federal fleet under Rear
Adm. David G. Farragut was preparing to attack. Perhaps Mohr had been using
his collecting trip as a disguise for a mission to observe the Union naval
operations. Mohr, who had moved with his wife and children to Mobile, Alabama
in 1857, was working for the Confederate government in his pharmaceutical and
medicinal capacity during the Civil War. Notice the “G.W.C.” written on the
upper left of the label (below).
For
more on Charles Mohr (click here):
 
As
data entry of the eighteenth century specimens, including the Clinton donation,
is continuing at both the Kriebel and Arthur Herbaria at Purdue University,
without doubt there will be more interesting items of information from the
specimens, not only for the purposes of plant systematics, but also data that
display the movements and activities of American scientists and educators
during the American Victorian period.
Acknowledgements
We
would like to thank George Yatskievych for reviewing specimens and useful
discussions regarding the Clinton
material and other early specimens from the Purdue Herbarium. Grateful
acknowledgement if made to John Grehan, Director of Science at the Buffalo
Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York, who, made research on the Clinton
Correspondence possible for the first author. We thank Nelda Ikenberry for
her kindness and encouragement. The second author prepared the digital and
data entry information at Purdue
University. We thank Richard Zander of the Missouri Botanical Garden
for review of the manuscript and for providing computer assistance in the
preparation of the text and images for on-line publication.
Bibliography
Thiers, B.
[continuously updated]. Index Herbariorum: A global directory of public
herbaria and associated staff. New
York Botanical Garden's
Virtual Herbarium. http://sweetgum.nybg.org/ih/
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