A New York Botanical Garden project called Transcribing Torrey is asking volunteers to decipher the notes and correspondence of one of the most prominent botanists of the 1800s, John Torrey.
He lived during the heyday of botany, when researchers around the world were racing to name Earth’s many unidentified species. Scientists say his extensive correspondence offers a unique window into a time when explorers were still documenting the New World.
“No greater champion of wildflowers ever lived than Dr. John Torrey, the 19th-century botanist and cataloguer of North American flora,” The New York Times wrote in 1970.
