COLDEN, JANE

botanist (1724 - 1766)

She discovered a new genus in botany. She was educated at home. Her catalog work was extremely accurate. She published the first illustrated flora of New York State. She was the first to classify plants according to the Linnaean system. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707 - 1778 CE), the father of taxonomy, arranged plants and animals into natural systems reflecting their common relationships. All that memorizing of class, genus, and species one does in biology class started with Linnaeus. So Jane was right on the mark with her work, and botany moved to the springboard into modern biology. The New York Garden Club of Orange and Duchess Counties, published in 1963, on the 50th anniversary of The Garden Club of America, a reproduction of her original manuscript. What began in the drawing rooms of talented artists ends in the great biology laboratories of the 21st century.

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