The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. © 2005
This finding aid was produced in English.
Finding aid produced using NoteTab Pro
|
|
||
| Collectors: | Train, Percy. | |
| Title: | Percy Train Papers (PP) | |
| Dates: | 1926-1958 | |
| Dates: | 1938-1940 | |
| Quantity: | 6.2 linear feet; 5 boxes | |
| Call Phrase: | Train, (PP) | |
Percy Train (1876-1942) was a botanist and collector of Nevada plants and fossils. He was born in Helena, Montana and attended the (Butte) Montana School of Mines. After a period of time in business as a mining engineer, he turned to experimental botany and fossil collecting in southern Nevada. From 1926 to 1932 he gained a reputation as an expert fossil hunter and worked on contract for colleges and museums. In 1932, with his wife Agnes Hume Scott, he excavated Miocene fossil leaves in Oregon for Dr. Chester A. Arnold of the University of Michigan. In 1935 Mr. Train collected desert plants in Death Valley for William R. Maxon of the Smithsonian Institution. Two years later the Trains began a project to study medicinal uses of plants among the aboriginal cultures of Nevada, including Shoshone, Paiute, Washoe, and Moapa Paiute cultures. They conducted ethnobotanical fieldwork from 1937 to 1941 collecting specimens and researching the native uses of plants. From this “Indian Medicine Project” Mr. Train published Medicinal Uses of Plants by Indian Tribes of Nevada (1941) with James R. Henrichs, and W. Andrew Archer, issued by the USDA Bureau of Plant Industry in conjunction with the Work Projects Administration and the University of Nevada.
The collection consists of notebooks, research papers, index cards, and photographic material pertaining to plant specimen collection for Percy Train’s ethnobotanical research on medicinal uses of plants in aboriginal cultures of Nevada.
Arrangement |
||
| The collection is organized into two series: | ||
| Series 1: Research Papers.1926-1958. Arranged by media, thereunder alphabetically by subject. | ||
| Series 2: Photographic Material. 1937-1940. | ||
This collection is open for research with permission from Mertz Library staff.
Requests for permission to publish material from the collection should be submitted in writing to the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden.
Indexing Terms |
||
| The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog. | ||
| Subjects | ||
| Ethnobotany -- Nevada. | ||
| Indians of North America -- Medicine -- Nevada. | ||
| New York Botanical Garden Archives. | ||
| Train, Percy -- Archives. | ||
Percy Train Papers (PP), Archives, The New York Botanical Garden.
The collection was acquired by Dr. Arthur Cronquist of the NYBG as part of the publication series Contribution toward a Flora of Nevada, a project of the Work Projects Administration of Nevada, USDA Agricultural Research Service Bureau of Plant Industry, and University of Nevada Department of Botany.
Originally processed by David Rose, Archives Assistant, November 2000 with grant funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH-PA 23141-98) and the Harriet Ford Dickenson Foundation. Converted to EAD in July 2006 by Kathleene Konkle under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH-PA 50678-04).