13 Facts About Jane Colden

Jane Colden is most famous for her untitled manuscript, housed in the British Museum, in which she describes the flora of the Hudson Valley in the Newburgh region of New York state, including ink drawings of 340 different species.

Cadwalleder Jane Colden had been the first to apply the system of botanical classification developed by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus to an American plant collection and he translated the text of Linnaeus' books into English.

Garden, an active collector of his local flora, later corresponded with Jane Colden, exchanged seeds and plants with her, and instructed her in the preservation of butterflies.

Between 1753 and 1758 Jane Colden catalogued New York's flora, compiling specimens and information on more than 400 species of plants from the lower Hudson River Valley, and classifying them according to the system developed by Linnaeus.

Jane Colden developed a technique for making ink impressions of leaves, and was a skilled illustrator, doing ink drawings of 340.

Jane Colden participated in the Natural History Circle where she exchanged seeds and plants with other plant collectors in the American colonies and in Europe.

In 1753 Jane Colden discovered the plant which is known as Hypericum virginicum and proposed a name after the prominent botanist Alexander Garden.

Jane Colden's manuscript drawing consisted only of leaves and these drawings were only ink outlines colored in with neutral tint.

Jane Colden documented her findings of an entirely new flora for her countrymen and for eager Europeans, and it is with this in mind that we can fully understand her delight in botany and appreciate her contribution.

Jane Colden's manuscript has a title page added in 1801 by Ernst Gottfried Baldinger, who was a professor at the universities of Jena and Marburg.

Jane Colden wrote in Latin "Flora Nov- Eboracensis," translated as "Flora of New York," in English.

Jane Colden died seven years later at the age of 41; in the same year her only child died.

Visitors to her family home noted that Jane Colden made excellent cheese and she recorded them in the document Memorandum of Cheese made in 1756.