Rhodora, William G. Farlow, and Cryptogamic Botany

William G. Farlow was active in the founding of the New England Botanical Club in 1895. His influence extended to a group of local botanists, both amateur and professional, who were founding members of the Club and contributors to the early volumes of Rhodora. They collected across New England and published on bryophytes, algae, lichens, fungi, and vascular plants. Farlow was central to this activity, as were his collections and library. The Farlow Reference Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding. Farlow brought to his studies, and those researchers around him, approaches from his European training. A study of Farlow's work on the chestnut blight highlights the use of collections and the importance of documentation. The early works published in Rhodora by local cryptogamic botanists, and the documentation of their studies, have utility in today's investigations of distributional changes, habitat alterations, and invasion biology through the baseline studies that their work represents.