Gray Herbarium Will Not Remove Million Rare Plants on Account of Boston Bombing Scare

Internationally famous as one of the foremost centers for the classification and study of plant life, the Gray Herbarium, associated with the University Botanical Gardens, today possesses a valuable library and a collection of over a million irreplaceable rare plants and flowers.

Despite recent bombing rumors, and the hurried preparations that Widener Library and other University institutions housing valuable libraries and collections are making to preserve their treasures, the Herbarium is relying only on its somewhat suburban location for protection against a possible bombing attack.

At one time officials of the Herbarium considered removing their books and specimens to Dartmouth, "since that would be one place sufficiently isolated so we wouldn't ever have to worry about Nazi bombs," but this plan was abandoned.

Exchanges With Germany

Throughout the Present war, the library at the Herbarium has traded its monthly publications for those of Germany and other warring nations, even though some rather devious financial and diplomatic complications have had to be unravelled as a result. In addition, American or German naturalists who have "discovered" and named new plants have relayed the information to their brethren scientists through the exchange of special card indexes containing all the data.

Founded by Asa Gray

The Herbarium was created in 1862, when Doctor Asa Gray, who held the Massachusetts Professorship of Natural History at Harvard, gave his library and his 200,000 plant specimens to the old Botanical Gardens, with the stipulation that a fire-proof building should be constructed to house the valuable collection.

The necessary funds were advanced by William Thayer of Boston, a philanthropist who had endowed Agassiz Zoological Museum, and the Herbarium came into being under the leadership of Doctor Gray, who ambitiously despatched specimen collectors all over the globe, and who himself engaged in careful research work and carried on a detailed correspondence with Darwin and other prominent scientists of the period. At present, the Herbarium is under the direction of Merritt L. Fernald '97. Fisher Professor of Natural History.