Name: Botanical Opportunities in British Columbia
Narrative: Item is a paper presented to the British Columbia Academy of Science.
In his 1912 speech, John Davidson summarized the botanical activities that had taken place prior to his arrival in British Columbia. He believed that there was still plenty of room for contributions and hoped that his botanical office would fill the gap. For Davidson “[o]ne of the most interesting sides of botany is ‘the relation of plants to their environment.’” In order to fully study this relationship, he laid out a plan for field botany (elsewhere known as the new science of ecology).
In this speech, Davidson compared his “modern” (circa 1912) botanical methods to earlier botanical methods, saying: “Botany of today assumes a different aspect. It is not so much the study of dead plants, but more the study of life, as manifested through the living plant.” Davidson felt that British Columbia provided unique opportunities for botanists who adopted this approach because the province had “so many localities where we can rise from sea level to an altitude of 4000 or 5000 feet within one or two miles.”
Web Site Accession Number: 2007.565.0015
Object Height: 34.3 cm
Object Width: 20.8 cm
Credit: City of Vancouver Archives, 565-F-3 file 2
Object Date(s): 191209?
Artist: Davidson, John
Media: paper
Locale of Artwork: British Columbia, Canada
