{"id":1026,"date":"2014-03-05T16:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T21:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/science-talk\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2014-03-05T16:02:43","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T21:02:43","slug":"americas-first-female-botanist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/03\/americas-first-female-botanist\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s First Female Botanist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicole Tarnowsky is Administrative Curator of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium<\/a> at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>. Each Wednesday throughout Women’s History Month, <\/em>Science Talk<\/a> will celebrate one of the many women of science to have left a mark on botanical history.<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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Highly respected among her male peers in\u00a0the 18th century, Jane Colden received great accolades and\u00a0is generally recognized\u00a0as the first female American botanist.\u00a0Yet she went largely unnoticed by\u00a0the greater scientific community for well over a century after her death.<\/p>\n

\"Entry<\/a>
Entry in Colden\u2019s manuscript describing the new species Gardenia<\/em>. Reproduced with the permission of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born in New York City in 1724, she\u00a0grew up in the Hudson Valley\u00a0on the estate of her father, Cadwallader Colden, who was a lieutenant governor of New York. The area was then called Coldenham, but we would recognize it as a region just west of Newburgh in Orange County, New York.
\n
\nColden\u00a0was taught by her father, who was also a physician and scientist, to study plants\u00a0using the\u00a0system of scientific classification and nomenclature devised by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, which\u00a0is still the basis for naming and describing\u00a0species today. In that era, women were not taught Latin,\u00a0so her father translated Linnaeus\u2019 Genera Plantarum<\/em> into English for her.<\/p>\n

Between\u00a01753 and 1758, she compiled a manuscript that\u00a0included original descriptions and illustrations for 341 plants in the Coldenham region, including one scientifically published in 1756 as Gardenia<\/em>.\u00a0Colden named it after a friend, the\u00a0botanist Alexander Garden. Unfortunately, the fragrant flower we know as Gardenia<\/em> had already claimed this name, making Colden’s invalid. Linnaeus later described Colden\u2019s plant as Hypericum virginicum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Herbarium<\/a>
Herbarium specimen from our holdings of Colden’s Gardenia, or Hypericum virginicum<\/em> L., collected in the same region where Jane Colden first described the plant.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Still, her work on New York\u00a0plants\u00a0was highly praised. English scientist Peter Collinson wrote to Linnaeus in 1758: \u201cAs this accomplished lady is the only one of the fair sex that I have heard of, who is scientifically skillful in the Linnaean system, you, no doubt, will distinguish her merits, and recommend her example to the ladies of every country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jane Colden died in childbirth in 1766. Her\u00a0life as a botanical forerunner did not come to light until 1895, when James Britten published her biography, “Jane Colden and the Flora of New York”\u00a0in the Journal of Botany, British and Foreign<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A forerunner in the study of American botany, Jane Colden set the bar high for scientists of both sexes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":1036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[150,275,276,273,274],"yoast_head":"\nAmerica's First Female Botanist - Science Talk Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/03\/americas-first-female-botanist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"America's First Female Botanist - Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A forerunner in the study of American botany, Jane Colden set the bar high for scientists of both sexes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/03\/americas-first-female-botanist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-05T21:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-05T21:02:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/01921314.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"597\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nicole Tarnowsky\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/\",\"name\":\"Science Talk Archive\",\"description\":\"Exploring the science of plants, from the field to the lab\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/03\/americas-first-female-botanist\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/01921314.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/01921314.jpg\",\"width\":597,\"height\":900,\"caption\":\"Herbarium specimen from our holdings of Colden's Gardenia, or Hypericum virginicum L., collected in the same region where Jane Colden first described the plant.\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/03\/americas-first-female-botanist\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/03\/americas-first-female-botanist\/\",\"name\":\"America's First Female Botanist - 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