Have you heard of the Little Free Library that some thoughtful people put up out by their sidewalks?    Well, a few weeks ago, I saw a post by Hylton Jolliffe about his Little Free Herbary...   Takes obvious inspiration from the little free library movement and it aims to help us share and connect with neighbors and others who might need herbs for cooking medicinal remedies fragrances etc.   The idea takes obvious inspiration from the wonderful Little Free Library movement and it aims to help us share and connect with neighbors and others who might need herbs for cooking, medicinal remedies, fragrances, etc.    Anyway, I loved Hylton's idea; I think it's just as cute as all get out.   Hylton also has a Facebook groupthat you can go to to find out more information. Just search for "Little Free Herbary the next time your in Facebook.        Brevities       #OTD  It was on this day, in 1812, the botanist Karl Theodor Hartweg was born.   He'd started out in Paris, working for the botanical garden there, and then ended up going to the Chiswick garden in London. He was eager to travel and go on expeditions. He was sent to the Americas for the first time in 1836.   He was supposed to be there for a three year project, but you know how plans go astray...   He ended up being there're seven years.   During Hartweg's time, native plants from Mexico, like dahlias and cacti, were all the rage.   Hartweg's particular specialty was orchids. According to Merle Reinkka, the author of A History of the Orchid, Hartweg collected,   "The most variable and comprehensive collection of New World Orchids made by a single individual in the first half of the [19th] century."     During his time in America, Vera Cruz (Mexico) became something of a mecca for Plant Explorers. Hartweg  once commented ,   “All the way from London just to look after weeds.”         #OTD  It's the anniversary of the 1969 death of Edgar Shannon Anderson.    Anderson was an American botanist and his 1949 book Introgressive Hybridizationwas a major step forward in botanical genetics.   While he was at Harvard, Anderson went on to work at the Bussey Institute; a biological arm of the University.   It was there that he met Dorothy Moore, a fellow botanist.  Dorothy was always by his side; going on hikes and collecting plant specimens. They were married in 1923.   Anderson became the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. After three years of administrative work, he went back to his passions of teaching and research.   In 1952, Anderson published Plants, Man and Life.   In the book, Anderson shared his methods of research and his perspective on life. It is a favorite among botanists. It contains not only scientific knowledge, but also folklore, some of Anderson's insight on early herbalists, and a little bit of philosophy.   There's a charming account of Leonard Fuchs, a German physician and botanist.   When Anderson wrote about him, he said, "He was a big, broad-shouldered Henry VIII sort of man; with handsome clothes and a general air of getting things done."       #OTD  It's the one-year anniversary of the death of the beloved botanist Professor Holenarasipur Yoganarasimham Mohan Ram (H.Y. Mohan Ram).   Mohan Ram Left a tremendous legacy of the faculty and students of the botany department at Delhi University.   He had Published over 240 research research papers get guided 32 PhD students and his research included studies in floral biology, plant physiology, insectivorous plants and the river weed family.   In one of his autobiographies Mohan Ram said,   "I wish I could be like a tree; deep rooted and firmly fixed, bearing a lofty bole and a broad canopy, continuously absorbing, synthesizing and renewing, bearing fragrant flowers and delicious fruits, unmindful of stresses and insults, resilient to changes and perpetually giving and not coveting. To this I must add tenacity, based on the remarkable example of a gingko tree, almost at the epicenter of the 1945 Hiroshima nuclea