Centennial Blog
The Country In The City
In 1903, regular newspaper readers in Germantown enjoyed a weekly series of articles titled, “A Flora of Germantown.” Written by Edwin Jellett, they ran every Friday for almost 40 weeks. Jellett, who lived from 1874 to 1931, wandered throughout Northwest Philadelphia, recording plants in bloom, noting changes in the flora from previous decades and referencing local history. In celebration its centennial as a public institution in 2016, Awbury Arboretum republished Jellett’s articles in sequence, re-creating for the 21st century electronic reader what the newspaper consumer of 1903 enjoyed – a vicarious Friday jaunt through Germantown.
Please click the links below to read through the entire 2016 Blog Series:
Edwin C. Jellett and unknown companion, circa 1905
Podophyllum peltatum (mandrake, may apple), from Wild Flowers of New York, 1917
Illustration from American Ornithology by Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte, 1835