Lloyd Library and Museum

Lloyd's Collection of Botany Books for Children

Reprinted from Lloydiana, Volume 8, Number 2, Spring 2004, pages 4-5

In my snail mail inbox one can find the usual assortment of bills, catalogs, book announcements, requests for reference service, and that "other stuff" unkindly referred to as junk. I always wish that I had more time to look at the rare book catalogs, exhibit announcements, and other mail of interest and inspiration; and therefore, occasionally I steal a moment or two to indulge myself. One wintry day in late December, an exhibit catalog from The New York Botanical Garden titled America's Cornucopia: A Collector's View of American Botany and Horticulture caught my attention. While flipping through the pages, serendipity (one of my favorite friends) made an appearance and inspired the subject of this column-botanical juvenile literature at the Lloyd.

On the second page of the catalog was a photograph of one of those beautiful gold-embossed cloth-covered books, so popular in the nineteenth century. It was The Wonders of Plant Life Under the Microscope by Sophie Bledsoe Herrick, published in 1883. Interested, as I always am, by women authors, especially those in the sciences; and, curious to know whether or not we owned the book, I turned to the online catalog and looked up author Herrick. The Lloyd owned the book, of course, as well as another by Herrick titled Chapters on Plant Life which was cataloged with the subject heading "Botany - Juvenile Literature." Now that was interesting! I had never thought of the Lloyd as having juvenile literature; so, I did another search on the subject heading and discovered that the Lloyd has nearly 100 books on botany for children. I did some investigating....

The oldest book is An Introduction to Botany: In a Series of Familiar Letters, with Illustrative Engravings by Priscilla Wakefield published in 1796. The Lloyd has several editions of this book, including a French edition titled Flore des Jeunes Personnes, ou, Lettres Élémentaires sur la Botanique published in 1802. This book uses the convention of two sisters, Felicia and Constance, writing letters to convey information and ask questions. In a series of 27 letters, Felicia writes to Constance, teaching her botany according to the classification system of Linnæus.

Another book employs a similar convention to teach botany to young people. Robert John Thornton, M.D., who was a lecturer on botany at Guy's Hospital and a prolific author, wrote An Easy Introduction to the Science of Botany: Through the Medium of Familiar Conversations between a Father and His Son published in 1823. These conversations cover such topics as composition of flowers, different kinds of seeds, the Linnæan system, and the "practical employment of the foregoing knowledge."

Herrick's 1885 Chapters on Plant Life contains 84 illustrations, most of which are initialed with Herrick's "S.B.H." Her chapter titles are whimsical and sure to entice young minds to read about "A Flowerless Flour Garden," "The Fairy Fungi," "Plants Caught Napping," and "Flowers in Fancy Dress."

Even one of the foremost American botanists, Asa Gray, wrote two books for children. Although they both have rather long and cumbersome official titles, they are also known by the shorter How Plants Grow (1858) and How Plants Behave (1872). The earlier book has 500 wood engravings and its chapters convey the parts of plants, how plants are propagated, why they grow, and how they are classified. It also contains a section entitled "Popular Flora for Beginners" and a dictionary of botanical terms. Page one of How Plants Grow is reproduced at left. Gray's second children's book is much shorter (46 pages as compared to 233 in the first). Its rather delightful subtitle should attract curious young readers as the book purports to explain plants, "how they move, climb, [and] employ insects to work for them." About this book, Gray wrote to Charles Darwin on May 31, 1872 "I send you a little book, which may amuse you, in seeing your own science adapted to juvenile minds." (Gray, Jane Loring, ed. Letters of Asa Gray . Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1894. Volume 2, p. 624). Both Gray's works were praised by Sir Joseph Hooker in Nature, February 16, 1888; he wrote: "that for charm of matter and style they have no equal in botanical literature." (Ibid., p. 438).

Some of the other titles that grace the Lloyd's shelves are Eliza Youmans, The First Book of Botany ; Lucy Hardcastle's An Introduction to the Elements of the Linnæan System of Botany: For Young Persons ; Caroline Amelia Halsted's The Little Botanist ; Kate Louise Brown's The Plant Baby and Its Friends ; and a representative from Italy, Primo Studio delle Piante by Lorenzo Camerano and Mario Lessona. The last I will mention here is Summer in a Bog by Katharine Dooris Sharp published in 1913. It is written for children and confines itself to Ohio botany. Sharp devotes over 100 pages to noteworthy botanists, in chapters such as "The Woman Botanist," "Women Botanists of Ohio," "Botanists of Ohio," and "Some of the World's Botanists."

Most of these books were published in the nineteenth century and, of course, differ vastly in style from today's juvenile literature. Although the Lloyd no longer collects juvenile literature in any of its focus areas, this little portion of the collection is a wonderful example of the uniqueness that the Lloyd lays claim to, and perhaps deserves further investigation, utilization, and exposure. Watch for mention of these little gems again, as I explore opportunities for outreach to schools and ideas for exhibits.

Maggie Heran, Director