Found: Original Plant Inventory of Herrontown Woods

Occasionally, artifacts from the early days of Herrontown Woods come to light. 

Betty Horn, who has long taught a spring wildflowers course for the Adult School, and maintains the University's Rogers Bird Room, contacted me last month:

"Hi Steve,
I was at the University yesterday and came across two small metal boxes filled with index cards. They had “Herrontown woods” printed on the side and contained index cards listing plants alphabetically by Latin names.
I don’t know when they were made or who made them. If you would like them, please let me know."

She continued: "They were stored in an Eno Hall basement room known as "The Bird Room." They came to light when the Bird Collection was moved from Eno to Green Hall. They were probably in a niche along with other historical items (such as bird journals from W.E.D. Scott) and were put there when the collection was moved from Guyot to Eno. I think that was in the '70's." - Betty

The boxes are filled with cards, each with a plant name and nothing more. What finally occurred to us was that each plant had two cards--one with its common name, the other with the latin name, just like in the plant inventory that appears in the book about Herrontown Woods published in the early 1970s. The author, Richard Kramer, had done a study of Herrontown Woods for his doctoral dissertation at Rutgers. 

Here's the last page of the inventory in the book.

The index cards must have been the official inventory that was then transferred to the book. How they ended up at Princeton University's Eno Hall is not clear. 

Thanks to Betty for giving us this artifact from Herrontown Woods' early days.