AN ECLECTIC LIBRARY.

Botany of North America.

☛Historic Botanical Works have been moved to their own page.

☛These books deal mostly, but not exclusively, with the flora of northeastern North America. We have a separate section on this page for Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania.

Gray’s Manual of Botany. Still one of the great standard references for the flora of northeastern North America. It has been through eight editions, all of which are now out of copyright. The titles of the various editions vary, and only the eighth seems actually to be called Gray’s Manual of Botany, but that is the title by which botanists have always referred to it.

Gray’s Manual of Botany. Eighth (Centennial) Edition—Illustrated. A Handbook of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Central and Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Largely rewritten and expanded by Merritt Lyndon Fernald. New York, etc.: American Book Company, 1950. —The librarian at the University of Florida appends this note: “Copyright status reviewed by UF staff - out of copyright.”

Seventh edition. Gray’s New Manual of Botany (Seventh Edition—Illustrated). A Handbook of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Central and Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Rearranged and Extensively Revised by Benjamin Lincoln Robinson and Merritt Lyndon Fernald. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: American Book Company, 1908.
A better scan at the Internet Archive.

A Manual of Botany for the Northern States. Comprising generic descriptions of all phenogamous and cryptogamous plants to the north of Virginia, hitherto described; with references to the natural orders of Linneus and Jussieu. Each Genus is further illustrated by short Descriptions of its most common Species. By the Members of the Botanical Class in Williams’ College, (Mass.), from a Manuscript System compiled by the author of Richard’s Botanical Dictionary [Amos Eaton]. Albany: Websters and Skinners, 1817. —Organized on the Linnaean system; useful mostly as an exhibit of the state of botanical knowledge in North America more than two centuries ago.

An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada, and the British Possessions, by Nathaniel Lord Britton and Hon. Addison Brown. —This is the other standard reference for northeastern North America.

Vol. I  (second edition,1913).
A better copy.
Vol. I  (first edition, 1896).

Vol. II (second edition, 1913).
A better copy.
Vol. II (first edition, 1897).

Vol. III (second edition, 1913).
A better copy.
Vol. III (first edition, 1898).

General Key and Indexes to the Three Volumes. 1898.


Manual of the Flora of the Northern States and Canada,  by Nathaniel Lord Britton. Third edition, 1907. Based on Britton and Brown's Illustrated Flora.

A Brief Flora of the Eastern United States. By W. Nevin Geddes, A.M., Ph.D., 1903. Bound with E. F. Andrews' Botany All the Year Round.

Flora Atlantica. Descriptive Botany; Being a Succinct Analytical Flora, including all the plants growing in the United States from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River. By Alphonso Wood, A.M., 1879.

The American Botanist and Florist: Including Lessons in the Structure, Life, and Growth of Plants; Together with a Simple Analytical Flora, descriptive of the native and cultivated plants growing in the Atlantic division of the American Union. By Alphonso Wood, A.M., 1873. (Useful for its descriptions of plants commonly cultivated in 1873.)



The North American Sylva, or a Description of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia, considered particularly with respect to their use in the Arts, and their introduction into Commerce; to which is added a description of the most useful of the European forest trees. Illustrated by 156 coloured engravings. Translated from the French of F. Andrew Michaux, member of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, &c., &c. Paris: C. D'Hautel, 1818-1819. —Gorgeous colored engravings, generally well scanned.
Vol. I

Vol. II.

Vol. III

Sketches Towards a Hortus Botanicus Americanus; or, Coloured Plates (with a catalogue and concise and familiar descriptions of many species) of new and valuable plants of the West Indies and North and South America. Also of several others, natives of Africa and the East Indies: arranged after the Linnaean System. With a concise and comprehensive glossary of terms, prefixed, and a general index. By W. J. Titford, M. D. London: Printed for the author, 1811. —The engraved ornamental title page leaves out "Sketches Towards a," and gives the place and date of publication as "New York 1810." It is followed by the standard boilerplate American copyright notice of the period ("Be it remembered..."). Many fine colored engravings; the scans are mostly good.

Handbook of the Trees of the Northern States and Canada East of the Rocky Mountains. Photo-descriptive. By Romeyn Beck Hough. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1908. —Each tree has its own two-page spread with photos of leaves, fruits, and trunk.

Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania

Flora of Pennsylvania, by Thomas Conrad Porter, D.D., Ll.D., 1903.
Another copy.

Pennsylvania Trees. By Joseph S. Illick, 1919.

A Preliminary List of the Vascular Flora of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, by John A. Shafer, Ph.G., 1901.

Check List of the Vascular Flora of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. By L. K. Henry and W. E. Buker. In Trillia: Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania. This is an updated (published 1951) and expanded version of Shafer’s list above.

Handbook of the Flora of Philadelphia and Vicinity. By Ida A. Keller and Stewardson Brown, 1905.