Botanic manuscript of Jane Colden, 1724-1766. Edited by H.W. Rickett and E.C. Hall.

Colden was the first distinguished American woman botanist. Her work is known only from an untitled manuscript by her on the flora of the lower Hudson River Valley of New York that is preserved in the Natural History Museum (London), portions of which are here reproduced in facsimile. The manuscript's title page was added by Ernst Gottfried Baldiner in 1801. The manuscript includes 340 ink drawings by Colden, and in some cases includes folklore suggesting medicinal uses for particular plants. Colden died in childbirth at the age of 42.