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Difference between revisions of "Alexander Garden"

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==History==
 
==History==
  
While studying at Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1743 to 1746, Garden served as an apprentice to Dr. James Gordon, professor of medicine, who introduced him to botanical studies and “tinctured my mind with a relish for them.” <ref> Alexander Garden to __, quoted in Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, ''Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town'' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 10, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZFR499TP view on Zotero];, 10, </ref> He continued his study of botany while pursuing a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh, working under Charles Alston (1675-1760), professor of botany and medicine, as well as Keeper of the Garden at Holyrood and King’s Botanist.<ref> ''Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh'' (Edinburgh: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1921), 12: vii, ix; Berkeley, 1969, 15-20</ref> Garden later recalled: “I then & even to this day remember every Genus nay Every Species that is either in the King’s Garden or in the Physic Garden. I could go to the very spot where it grows.”<ref> Garden to Charles Alston, February 18, 1756, quoted in Berkeley,1969, 24, </ref> In search of professional opportunities and a warmer climate, Garden set out in 1751 for Carolina, apparently stopping at Lisbon en route, where he purchased a four-volume Italian translation of Francesco Eulaio Savastano’s botanical treatise, ''Botanicorum seu institutionum rei herbariae'' (Naples, 1712), which he brought to America along with Alston’s catalogue of the Edinburgh Garden.<ref> Berkeley, 1969, 24-25, 27; see also Charles Alston, ''Index Plantarum, Præcipue Officinalium, Quæ, in Horto Medico Edinburgensis'' (Edinburgh: W. Sands, A. Brymer, A. Murray, and J. Cochran, 1740) and Francesco Eulaio Savastano, ''I Quattro libri delle cose botaniche del P. Francesco Eulalio Savastano,... colla traduzione in verso sciolto italiano di Giampetro Bergantini,... e colle annotazioni di esso autore ed altre aggiuntevi'' (Venice: P. Bassaglia, 1749).</ref> Within days of his arrival in Charles Town (modern-day Charleston), Garden began sending indigenous plants to colleagues across the Atlantic&mdash; a practice he pursued over the next two decades.<ref> Berkeley, 1969, 29, 35-39, 185-86, </ref>
+
While studying at Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1743 to 1746, Garden served as an apprentice to Dr. James Gordon, professor of medicine, who introduced him to botanical studies and “tinctured my mind with a relish for them.” <ref> Alexander Garden to __, quoted in Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, ''Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town'' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 10, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZFR499TP view on Zotero];, 10, </ref> He continued his study of botany while pursuing a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh, working under Charles Alston (1675-1760), professor of botany and medicine, as well as Keeper of the Garden at Holyrood and King’s Botanist.<ref> ''Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh'' (Edinburgh: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1921), 12: vii, ix; Berkeley, 1969, 15-20</ref> Garden later recalled: “I then & even to this day remember every Genus nay Every Species that is either in the King’s Garden or in the Physic Garden. I could go to the very spot where it grows.”<ref> Garden to Charles Alston, February 18, 1756, quoted in Berkeley,1969, 24, </ref> In search of professional opportunities and a warmer climate, Garden set out in 1751 for Carolina, apparently stopping at Lisbon, where he purchased a four-volume Italian translation of Francesco Eulaio Savastano’s botanical treatise, ''Botanicorum seu institutionum rei herbariae'' (Naples, 1712), which he brought to America along with Alston’s catalogue of the Edinburgh Garden.<ref> Berkeley, 1969, 24-25, 27; see also Charles Alston, ''Index Plantarum, Præcipue Officinalium, Quæ, in Horto Medico Edinburgensis'' (Edinburgh: W. Sands, A. Brymer, A. Murray, and J. Cochran, 1740) and Francesco Eulaio Savastano, ''I Quattro libri delle cose botaniche del P. Francesco Eulalio Savastano,... colla traduzione in verso sciolto italiano di Giampetro Bergantini,... e colle annotazioni di esso autore ed altre aggiuntevi'' (Venice: P. Bassaglia, 1749).</ref> Within days of his arrival in Charles Town (modern-day Charleston), Garden began sending indigenous plants to colleagues across the Atlantic&mdash; a practice he pursued over the next two decades.<ref> Berkeley, 1969, 29, 35-39, 185-86, </ref>
  
Garden's contributions to scientific knowledge of American flora increased in the fall of 1752 when a fellow amateur botanist, the Carolina planter and politician [[William Bull II]], lent him several foundational botanical studies, including [[John Clayton]]’s ''Flora Virginica'' (1739) (the first catalogue of plants indigenous to the American South) and [[Carl Linnaeus]]'s ''Fundamenta Botanica'' (1736) and ''Classes plantarum'' (1738).<ref> Berkeley, 1969, 33, </ref> Guided by [[Carl Linneaus|Linneaus’s]] books, Garden dissected 1,000 local plants and described several in Linnean terms, sharing his findings with European contacts.<ref>Berkeley, 1969, 35, 66, </ref> The British merchant and naturalist John Ellis (c. 1710-1776) offered to present Garden’s descriptions of new plants to the Royal Society in London, and to have drawings made by the botanic artist [[George Dionysus Ehret]]. Garden reciprocated with "a pretty curious collection of seeds” which Ellis sent to be germinated by Christopher Gray (1693/4–1764), a professional London nurseryman with extensive experience in acclimating American plants to English conditions.<ref>Berkeley, 1969, 54. Joyce D. Chaplin, “A Skeptical Newtonian in America,” David R. Brigham, “The Patronage of Natural History,” and Therese O’Malley, “Mark Catesby and the Culture of Gardens” in Amy R. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard, eds., ''Empire's Nature: Mark Catesby's New World Vision'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1998), 77, 129-30, 151,</ref> He “took the liberty” on several occasions of seeking to honor Ellis and James Gordon by requesting the names ''Ellisiana'' and ''Gordonia'' for Carolina plants that he took to be new ''genera''. Ellis returned the favor by obtaining [[Carl Linneaus|Linneaus]]’s consent to the name ''Gardenia'' for a ''genus'' of flowering shrub recently introduced to England. [[George Dionysus Ehret|Ehret]] commemorated the occasion by producing a colored engraving of the flower.<ref>Edmund Berkeley, "The History of the Naming of the Loblolly Bay," ''Journal of the History of Biology'', 3 (Spring 1970): 149-54; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 74-78, 113, 158-62; see also 114-19, 128-29 for Garden’s subsequent attempts to have a plant named ''Ellisia'' in Ellis’s honor,  </ref> Through his European correspondents, Garden received the latest botanical treatises within months of publication, as well as rare books, such as [[Carl Linneaus|Linnaeus’s]] ''Hortus Cliffortianus''&mdash; one of the only copies in America at that time.<ref>Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 90-91, 112 </ref>  
+
Garden's contributions to scientific knowledge of American flora became more substantial as a result of his acquaintance with the Carolina planter and politician [[William Bull II]], a fellow amateur botanist who in the fall of 1752 lent Garden several foundational botanical publications, including [[John Clayton]]’s ''Flora Virginica'' (1739) (the first catalogue of plants indigenous to the American South) and [[Carl Linnaeus]]'s ''Fundamenta Botanica'' (1736) and ''Classes plantarum'' (1738).<ref> Berkeley, 1969, 33, </ref> Guided by [[Carl Linneaus|Linneaus’s]] books, Garden dissected 1,000 local plants and described several in Linnean terms, sharing his findings with European contacts.<ref>Berkeley, 1969, 35, 66, </ref> The British merchant and naturalist John Ellis (c. 1710-1776) offered to present Garden’s descriptions of new plants to the Royal Society in London, and to have drawings made by the botanic artist [[George Dionysus Ehret]]. Garden reciprocated with "a pretty curious collection of seeds” which Ellis sent to be germinated by Christopher Gray (1693/4–1764), a professional London nurseryman with extensive experience in acclimating American plants to English conditions.<ref>Berkeley, 1969, 54. Joyce D. Chaplin, “A Skeptical Newtonian in America,” David R. Brigham, “The Patronage of Natural History,” and Therese O’Malley, “Mark Catesby and the Culture of Gardens” in Amy R. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard, eds., ''Empire's Nature: Mark Catesby's New World Vision'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1998), 77, 129-30, 151,</ref> He “took the liberty” on several occasions of seeking to honor Ellis and James Gordon by requesting the names ''Ellisiana'' and ''Gordonia'' for Carolina plants that he took to be new ''genera''. Ellis returned the favor by obtaining [[Carl Linneaus|Linneaus]]’s consent to the name ''Gardenia'' for a ''genus'' of flowering shrub recently introduced to England. [[George Dionysus Ehret|Ehret]] commemorated the occasion by producing a colored engraving of the flower.<ref>Edmund Berkeley, "The History of the Naming of the Loblolly Bay," ''Journal of the History of Biology'', 3 (Spring 1970): 149-54; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 74-78, 113, 158-62; see also 114-19, 128-29 for Garden’s subsequent attempts to have a plant named ''Ellisia'' in Ellis’s honor,  </ref> Through his European correspondents, Garden received the latest botanical treatises within months of publication, as well as rare books, such as [[Carl Linneaus|Linnaeus’s]] ''Hortus Cliffortianus''&mdash; one of the only copies in America at that time.<ref>Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 90-91, 112 </ref>  
  
 
During the summer of 1754 Garden traveled to New York, venturing as far north as Coldengham, the remote Hudson Highland estate of a fellow Scot, the physician and amateur botanist [[Cadwallader Colden]].<ref> Raven, 2002, 73, 223, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V2XH7UDP view on Zotero]; Meroney, 1991, 52, 56, [[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZDU4XXDA view on Zotero]; Hoffmann and Van Horne, 2004, xx,[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5AMSHETJAXRMP3X view on Zotero]; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 33, 35, 53, 42-46, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZFR499TP view on Zotero].</ref> Skilled in [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus's]] system of plant classification, [[Cadwallader Colden|Colden]] and his daughter [[Jane Colden|Jane]] undertook the scientific documentation of plants native to their region of New York. Garden exchanged plants and seeds with the Coldens for several years following his visit.<ref> Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 43-45, </ref> [view text] In 1756 he persuaded the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh to publish a new plant that [[Jane Colden]] had discovered and offered to name ''Gardenia'' in his honor&mdash; a tribute disallowed by Linnaeus, who considered the plant a known ''genus.''<ref> The plant is now most commonly known as Virginia marsh-St. John's-wort (''Triadenum virginicum''). See Alexander Garden [and Jane Colden], "The Description of a New Plant; by Alexander Garden, Physician at Charleston in South Carolina," in ''Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary'' (Edinburgh: G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1756), 2: 1–5, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Z4FEQNCC view on Zotero]; see also Colden, 1923, 5: 10, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/7DGU88MZ view on Zotero]. Daniel J. Philippon, "Gender, Genius, and Genre: Women, Science, and Nature Writing in Early America," in ''Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers'', ed. Thomas S. Edwards and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New Hampshire, 2001), 24-25, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DIX3BACP view on Zotero]; James Edward Smith, ''A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and Other Naturalists: From the Original Manuscripts'', 2 vols. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821), 1: 366-67, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/G8I8I4DR view on Zotero]; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 53, 74, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZFR499TP view on Zotero]. Berkeley, 1969, 51-52, 69, 96</ref> [view text]  
 
During the summer of 1754 Garden traveled to New York, venturing as far north as Coldengham, the remote Hudson Highland estate of a fellow Scot, the physician and amateur botanist [[Cadwallader Colden]].<ref> Raven, 2002, 73, 223, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V2XH7UDP view on Zotero]; Meroney, 1991, 52, 56, [[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZDU4XXDA view on Zotero]; Hoffmann and Van Horne, 2004, xx,[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5AMSHETJAXRMP3X view on Zotero]; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 33, 35, 53, 42-46, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZFR499TP view on Zotero].</ref> Skilled in [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus's]] system of plant classification, [[Cadwallader Colden|Colden]] and his daughter [[Jane Colden|Jane]] undertook the scientific documentation of plants native to their region of New York. Garden exchanged plants and seeds with the Coldens for several years following his visit.<ref> Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 43-45, </ref> [view text] In 1756 he persuaded the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh to publish a new plant that [[Jane Colden]] had discovered and offered to name ''Gardenia'' in his honor&mdash; a tribute disallowed by Linnaeus, who considered the plant a known ''genus.''<ref> The plant is now most commonly known as Virginia marsh-St. John's-wort (''Triadenum virginicum''). See Alexander Garden [and Jane Colden], "The Description of a New Plant; by Alexander Garden, Physician at Charleston in South Carolina," in ''Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary'' (Edinburgh: G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1756), 2: 1–5, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Z4FEQNCC view on Zotero]; see also Colden, 1923, 5: 10, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/7DGU88MZ view on Zotero]. Daniel J. Philippon, "Gender, Genius, and Genre: Women, Science, and Nature Writing in Early America," in ''Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers'', ed. Thomas S. Edwards and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New Hampshire, 2001), 24-25, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DIX3BACP view on Zotero]; James Edward Smith, ''A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and Other Naturalists: From the Original Manuscripts'', 2 vols. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821), 1: 366-67, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/G8I8I4DR view on Zotero]; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 53, 74, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZFR499TP view on Zotero]. Berkeley, 1969, 51-52, 69, 96</ref> [view text]  

Revision as of 20:00, August 11, 2015

Alexander Garden (January 1730-April 15, 1791), a Scottish-born physician and naturalist, lived for many years in Charleston, South Carolina, where he pursued horticultural experiments in the garden of his town house and at his country estate, Otranto. Garden discovered several new genera of plants, and engaged in plant and seed exchanges with prominent botanists and plant dealers in Europe and America. The flowering shrub Gardenia was named in his honor.

History

While studying at Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1743 to 1746, Garden served as an apprentice to Dr. James Gordon, professor of medicine, who introduced him to botanical studies and “tinctured my mind with a relish for them.” [1] He continued his study of botany while pursuing a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh, working under Charles Alston (1675-1760), professor of botany and medicine, as well as Keeper of the Garden at Holyrood and King’s Botanist.[2] Garden later recalled: “I then & even to this day remember every Genus nay Every Species that is either in the King’s Garden or in the Physic Garden. I could go to the very spot where it grows.”[3] In search of professional opportunities and a warmer climate, Garden set out in 1751 for Carolina, apparently stopping at Lisbon, where he purchased a four-volume Italian translation of Francesco Eulaio Savastano’s botanical treatise, Botanicorum seu institutionum rei herbariae (Naples, 1712), which he brought to America along with Alston’s catalogue of the Edinburgh Garden.[4] Within days of his arrival in Charles Town (modern-day Charleston), Garden began sending indigenous plants to colleagues across the Atlantic— a practice he pursued over the next two decades.[5]

Garden's contributions to scientific knowledge of American flora became more substantial as a result of his acquaintance with the Carolina planter and politician William Bull II, a fellow amateur botanist who in the fall of 1752 lent Garden several foundational botanical publications, including John Clayton’s Flora Virginica (1739) (the first catalogue of plants indigenous to the American South) and Carl Linnaeus's Fundamenta Botanica (1736) and Classes plantarum (1738).[6] Guided by Linneaus’s books, Garden dissected 1,000 local plants and described several in Linnean terms, sharing his findings with European contacts.[7] The British merchant and naturalist John Ellis (c. 1710-1776) offered to present Garden’s descriptions of new plants to the Royal Society in London, and to have drawings made by the botanic artist George Dionysus Ehret. Garden reciprocated with "a pretty curious collection of seeds” which Ellis sent to be germinated by Christopher Gray (1693/4–1764), a professional London nurseryman with extensive experience in acclimating American plants to English conditions.[8] He “took the liberty” on several occasions of seeking to honor Ellis and James Gordon by requesting the names Ellisiana and Gordonia for Carolina plants that he took to be new genera. Ellis returned the favor by obtaining Linneaus’s consent to the name Gardenia for a genus of flowering shrub recently introduced to England. Ehret commemorated the occasion by producing a colored engraving of the flower.[9] Through his European correspondents, Garden received the latest botanical treatises within months of publication, as well as rare books, such as Linnaeus’s Hortus Cliffortianus— one of the only copies in America at that time.[10]

During the summer of 1754 Garden traveled to New York, venturing as far north as Coldengham, the remote Hudson Highland estate of a fellow Scot, the physician and amateur botanist Cadwallader Colden.[11] Skilled in Linnaeus's system of plant classification, Colden and his daughter Jane undertook the scientific documentation of plants native to their region of New York. Garden exchanged plants and seeds with the Coldens for several years following his visit.[12] [view text] In 1756 he persuaded the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh to publish a new plant that Jane Colden had discovered and offered to name Gardenia in his honor— a tribute disallowed by Linnaeus, who considered the plant a known genus.[13] [view text]

While at Coldengham, Garden met the Philadelphia nurseryman John Bartram, who was collecting plants in the area. Garden visited Philadelphia before returning to Carolina and spent several days with Bartram, touring his Botanic Garden and Nursery and combing the surrounding countryside for unusual plants.[view text] FRANKLIN In June 1755 he accompanied Gov. James Glen’s expedition into the Cherokee territories west of Charles Town, taking advantage of the trip to collect botanical and geological specimens.[14] Before setting out with Glen on a more grueling expedition to the Mississippi River the following year—from which he hoped to return “richly laden with the spoils of Nature and our Appalachian Mountains”—Garden remarked in a friend, “Good God what will not the Sacred thirst of the Botanic Science urge one to undergo.”[15] Indeed, despite the overwhelming demands of his medical work (which included introducing the first smallpox vaccine to Charles Town), Garden continued to devote his free moments to collecting seeds and plants and penning scientific descriptions of new finds. His European correspondents included several eminent European naturalists, including Linnaeus in Sweden and the Dutch botanist John Frederick Gronovius at Leyden, whom Garden promised to send “anything among the animals, vegetables or minerals which would be pleasing to you.”[16] As Garden’s correspondence grew, so did his reputation. Toward the end of his life, he was extolled by the English botanist James Edward Smith (1759-1828), founder of the Linnean Society in London, as “Dr. Garden, to whom Linnaeus was so much obliged in his last edition of the Systema Naturae that I think no name occurs more frequently.” [17]

Contemporary accounts allude to Garden’s talent for horticulture and the great beauty of the garden at his house in Broad Street. His neighbor Martha Daniel Logan, who operated a commercial nursery in Charles Town, begged John Bartram to help her procure some coveted slips "of the Tree you Call the Snowball," which "Doe very well with us for Doctor Garden has a good many roots Now bluming.”[view text] Bartram had been Garden's guest for nearly three weeks during his first visit to the Carolinas in March 1760.[18] On their single joint excursion, Garden pointed out indigenous plants unfamiliar to Bartram, who seemed “almost ravished of his senses and lost in astonishment.” [19] Bartram transplanted the specimens he gathered to his host’s garden, and in October Garden informed him, “Your plants in my Garden thrive surprisingly well & they are now ready for your Boxes.” [20](view text) Bartram sent Garden a variety of plants, and Bartram returned the favor.[view text] Bartram particularly admired an evergreen growing in his host’s garden, later requesting that Garden’s neighbor, Martha Logan, send him some of its seeds. [21]

In 1761 Bartram sent Garden a large box of plants which included several evergreens (Newfoundland Spruce, Hemlock Fir, and Juniper) as aromatic herbs such as Lavender and Fraxinella. Garden immediately requested that Bartram send still more a parcel of bulbs, including Hyacinths, Narcissus, and Persian Iris.[22] For many years, Garden entertained the hope of establishing a “Provincial Garden” for experimental plant cultivation in the vicinity of Charleston. The Royal Society endorsed the idea of “nurseries for the making of Experiments in raising such rare and usefull plants as are not Spontaneous Growth of this Kingdom,” but Garden failed to generate local support, apart from the experimental cultivation of grape vines sent by the Royal Society that he persuaded his friends Christopher Gadsden and Henry Middleton to undertake in 1760.[23] He also established a botanical relationship with another Charles Town planter, Eliza Pinckney, whom he joined in experimenting with silk worm and indigo cultivation. [24] Years later, in 1773, a proposal was made for a botanic garden in western Florida, and Ellis solicited Garden’s advice. Arguing against the expense of such a project, he revived the idea of an experimental garden (251-52) Garden propagated new plants he had discovered in his garden with the intention of writing and publishing their descriptions. He shared his discoveries with a professional gardener in Charles Town known as Wilson, who also cultivated these rare plants and took them with him in 1765 when he left America to become gardener to Lord Adam Gordon in England. Anxious to be the first to announce the new plants to the world, Gardener quickly staked his claim by sending descriptions of several to Linnaeus. [25] When Bartram returned to Charles Town on his way Florida in July 1765, he again stayed at Garden’s house and accompanied his host on tours of local gardens, including those of Thomas and Elizabeth Lamboll and Henry Laurens, the latter laid out by the English gardener John Watson.[26] Otranto

Dr. Alexander Garden lived the remainder of his life in England. He died on April 15, 1791 of tuberculosis.



Texts

"I have met wt very Little new in the Botanic way unless Your acquaintance Bartram, who is what he is & whose acquaintance alone makes amends for other disappointments in that way.... One Day he Dragged me out of town & Entertain'd me so agreably with some Elevated Botanicall thoughts, on oaks, Firns, Rocks & c that I forgot I was hungry till we Landed in his house about four Miles from Town....

"His garden is a perfect portraiture of himself, here you meet wt a row of rare plants almost covered over wt weeds, here with a Beautiful Shrub, even Luxuriant Amongst Briars, and in another corner an Elegant & Lofty tree lost in common thicket — on our way from town to his house he carried me to severall rocks & Dens where he shewed me some of his rare plants, which he had brought from the Mountains &c. In a word he disdains to have a garden less than Pensylvania [sic] & Every den is an Arbour, Every run of water, a Canal, & every small level Spot a Parterre, where he nurses up some of his Idol Flowers & cultivates his darling productions. He had many plants whose names he did not know, most or all of which I had seen & knew them — On the other hand he had several I had not seen & some I never heard of."


"My present Business confined me much to Town. I have not had an hour to spend in the woods this 2 months which makes me turn rusty in Botany.”


  • Ogilvie, George, 1776, describing Alexander Garden's villa, Otranto, in Carolina; or, The Planter: Written in 1776 (Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 352-57)
"And lo! my friend, where all the muse demands,
"On Goose-creeks banks thy own Otranto stands!
"Where pleas'd and wond'ring as we thrid the maze,
"We doubt what beauty first demands our praise
"The river bounded by the impervious shade,
"The smooth green meadow, or the enamel'd glade,
"Where all the pride of Europe's florist yields

"To the assembled wildings of our fields....

"Here Pales seems with Flora to have strove,

"To blend the beauties of the lawn and grove....

Bright as the blush of Venus when she loves,
"Sweet as the woodbine of her Paphean groves...
"From tree to tree the flow'ry tindrils rove
"Till one continu'd garland binds the grove
"Winding through shady walks, we slow descend,

"To skirt the mead, or trace the river's bend...

"There midst the grove, with unassuming guise
"But rural neatness, see the mansion rise!...


  • Garden, Alexander, July 24, 1789, to Cadwallader Colden ("The Letters of George Ogilvie and Alexander Garden," 1986: 117)[28]
"A few unconnected remarks on the situation and productions of Otranto [and] the Reasources of Carolina are inclosed. Such of them as you can weave into a description of that once beautiful and roman tick spot, may show what a Carolina situation ornamentted with only the natural productions of the Country can arrive at when so laid out.— The magical deception of the winding of Streight walks was not the least ornament of the garden for while walking in the garden you saw no straight walk & yet when turning and walking along the Bank of the river you saw none but Streight walks & not one of these winding walks thro the meanders of which you had visited all parts of the Garden while in it. And what is it now— possessed by a Goth! It sickens my soul to think of it.

"Diversified grounds— Hill & Dale— A fine winding River— The opposite banks covered with tall primaeval trees with many a flourishing shrub making the most picturesque background.....

"The house on the top of the hill commanding a fine prospect of the adjacent grounds and many different views of the meanderings of the River— guarded on the West from the afternoon's sun by two large Liriodendrons or Tulip trees full of foliage and beautiful Blossoms during May June and part of July. Remember the large Liriodendron between the fish ponds rising eighty feet without a branch then spreading out into a large head having a large opening in the middle thro which the full moon about an hour high was seen from the Piazza of the house — Never was Cynthia seen so much to advantage before having not the simple fig leaf that Mother Eve resorted to but a full grown beard of tulip tree leaves and flowers. Had Endymion seen her thus arrayed what would he have said?

"Near the house is a rural Library overshaddowed with an Umbrageous Catalpa & Lofty magnolia under Cover of which the first Company of the world reside ...[Milton, Tasso, Ariosto, Gay, Voltaire, Horace, Theocritus, Thompson] Lineaus & Bufon accompany you to the Fields — Sir Issac & Cassini to the Celestial dance.....

"The gently hanging garden where Art only gives easy access to the Various inimitable productions of Nature....

"...Aromatick and flowering shrubs give a lovely glow to the gardens of Otranto that your cold bleak gardens of Albion can never see or produce....

"Fair Peaches— the Kennedy Peach when full ripe exceeding in richness and flavour any other fruit or what even fancy can suggest&mash; a taste the cold clime of Albion with all her art can never Emulate.

Images


References

Notes

  1. Alexander Garden to __, quoted in Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 10, view on Zotero;, 10,
  2. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (Edinburgh: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1921), 12: vii, ix; Berkeley, 1969, 15-20
  3. Garden to Charles Alston, February 18, 1756, quoted in Berkeley,1969, 24,
  4. Berkeley, 1969, 24-25, 27; see also Charles Alston, Index Plantarum, Præcipue Officinalium, Quæ, in Horto Medico Edinburgensis (Edinburgh: W. Sands, A. Brymer, A. Murray, and J. Cochran, 1740) and Francesco Eulaio Savastano, I Quattro libri delle cose botaniche del P. Francesco Eulalio Savastano,... colla traduzione in verso sciolto italiano di Giampetro Bergantini,... e colle annotazioni di esso autore ed altre aggiuntevi (Venice: P. Bassaglia, 1749).
  5. Berkeley, 1969, 29, 35-39, 185-86,
  6. Berkeley, 1969, 33,
  7. Berkeley, 1969, 35, 66,
  8. Berkeley, 1969, 54. Joyce D. Chaplin, “A Skeptical Newtonian in America,” David R. Brigham, “The Patronage of Natural History,” and Therese O’Malley, “Mark Catesby and the Culture of Gardens” in Amy R. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard, eds., Empire's Nature: Mark Catesby's New World Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1998), 77, 129-30, 151,
  9. Edmund Berkeley, "The History of the Naming of the Loblolly Bay," Journal of the History of Biology, 3 (Spring 1970): 149-54; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 74-78, 113, 158-62; see also 114-19, 128-29 for Garden’s subsequent attempts to have a plant named Ellisia in Ellis’s honor,
  10. Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 90-91, 112
  11. Raven, 2002, 73, 223, view on Zotero; Meroney, 1991, 52, 56, [view on Zotero; Hoffmann and Van Horne, 2004, xx,view on Zotero; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 33, 35, 53, 42-46, view on Zotero.
  12. Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 43-45,
  13. The plant is now most commonly known as Virginia marsh-St. John's-wort (Triadenum virginicum). See Alexander Garden [and Jane Colden], "The Description of a New Plant; by Alexander Garden, Physician at Charleston in South Carolina," in Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary (Edinburgh: G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1756), 2: 1–5, view on Zotero; see also Colden, 1923, 5: 10, view on Zotero. Daniel J. Philippon, "Gender, Genius, and Genre: Women, Science, and Nature Writing in Early America," in Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers, ed. Thomas S. Edwards and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New Hampshire, 2001), 24-25, view on Zotero; James Edward Smith, A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and Other Naturalists: From the Original Manuscripts, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821), 1: 366-67, view on Zotero; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 53, 74, view on Zotero. Berkeley, 1969, 51-52, 69, 96
  14. Berkeley, Garden, 62-63
  15. Garden to Henry Baker, March 14, 1756, quoted in Berkeley, Garden, 89
  16. Alexander Garden to John Frederick Gronovius, March 15, 1755, quoted in Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 52-53; for Garden’s plant and seed exchanges, see also 54-61, 69, 71-73, 76, 86, 91-92, 96, 98, 99, 104-05, 133-35, 213, 348-52, .
  17. Sir James Edward Smith, “Introductory Discourse on the Rise and Progress of Natural History,” April 8, 1788, quoted in Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 329
  18. Bartram, 1992, 498, view on Zotero; Berkeley and Berkeley, 1969, 151-54, view on Zotero.
  19. Berkeley, Alexander, 154
  20. Berkeley, Garden, 152,
  21. Berkeley, 1969, 153,
  22. Garden to Bartram, February 13, 1761, Darlington Memorials, 395-96,
  23. Berkeley, Garden, 155-56; see also 101-03, 119-21,
  24. Berkeley, 1969, 34; Feeser, 2013, 101, view on Zotero; Ben Marsh, "Silk Hopes in Colonial South Carolina," Journal of South History, 78 (2012): 807–54 passim, view on Zotero; Ravenel, 1896, 102, 130-31, view on Zotero.
  25. Berkeley, Alexander, 184-85,
  26. Berkeley, Garden, p. 199l; Francis Harper, ed., "John Bartram’s 'Diary of a Journey through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida'," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. 33, pt. 1 (1942-44): 13-15
  27. Cadwallader Colden, The Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden, Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1919 (New York: The New York Historical Society, 1921),
  28. "The Letters of George Ogilvie and Alexander Garden," The Southern Literary Journal, 18 (1986): 117–34, view on Zotero.

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