Embedded Files
Her Manuscript "Flora of New Work"
Her Manuscript "Flora of New Work"
In the main work of Colden, the manuscript of the New York Flora not only includes morphological details of flower and fruit structure and plant form but in addition occasional notes on domestic and medicinal uses of the plants. Jane gathered data from talking to the “ country people” or the indigenous communities (Smith 1988).
Unfortunately, very few of Colden’s writings survived. After she died, Ernst Gottfried Baldinge who was a professor of botany and various medical disciplines at the University of Jena added the Latin title page in 1801 and named it "Flora of New York.” (Smith 1988).
Currently, Flora of New York is housed in the British Museum’s Natural History collection. Some correspondence-related work can be found in Edinburgh while other related manuscripts with family papers are in the New York Historical Society which subsequently were published in the Society’s Collections (Biermann 1997). These photos show Colden's sketches of some plants in her manuscript.
List of Colden's Scientific Works
"Flora Nov. - Eboracensis." British Museum (Natural History) Catalog. No. 26, c. 19. Manuscript. Ca 1753-58.
"The description of a new plant: By Dr. Alexander Garden." Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary (Edinburgh Philosophical Society) 2 (1756): 1-7.
"Jane Colden to Charles Alston, New York, May 1, 1756." University of Edinburgh. Letter no. 99. Manuscript.
"Description." Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary (Edinburgh Philosophical Society) 2 (1770): 5-7.
"Description of Fibraurea, or Gold Thread." In A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, edited by James Edward Smith, vol 1, 94-95. London: Longmans, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1921. Reprinted, New York: Arno Press, 1978.
Botanical Manuscript of Jane Colden, 1724-1766. Edited by Harold Ricket and Elizabeth C. Hall. New York: Garden Club of Orange and Dutchess Counties, 1963.
Influenced by Her Father
Influenced by Her Father
Colden’s father (Calladwallader Colden) discovered that the Linnaeus classification system brought order to the formerly bewildering welter of local wild plants into easily understandable and categorizable entities. He used the system to identify the 247 plants that grow near his houses and made a description of 91 plants and his work was recognized by Linnaeus (Colden 1920).
With the background of understandings of gender common in the 18th century of Cadwallader, he convinced Jane to study botany which was generally masculine back at that time (Gronim 2007, Susan 2002).
Due to the language barrier, there was a challenge for Jane Colden to access Linnaeus's classification system. Calladwallader translated Linnaeus's book about the classification system of plants from Latin to English and provided lots of scientific books to Jane Colden (Biermann 1997, Gronim 2007). Jane Colden was acknowledged by botanical circles in both America and Europe due to the correspondence between her father to other botanists to show her work (Biermann 1997).
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