Carl Purdy info trove
Mary Sue Ittner via pbs (Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:14:11 PDT)

It is unfortunate that someone who cared so much about California's
native bulbs was responsible for the loss of so many. For those of you
who did not read the whole article there is this:
"Carl sent the bulb to a plant dealer in New Jersey who promised to pay
him $1.50 for each 100 bulbs he could send. The dealer was Woolson &
Co., of Passaic, New Jersey; the firm's 1883 catalog includes a dozen
species of Calochortus bulbs collected by Purdy. The Woolson catalog has
been digitized by Mertz Library staff and may be accessed here.  Purdy
would go on to establish a major nursery company specializing in the
native plants and flowers of California especially its bulbs. His firm,
at its peak of production, harvested over half a million native bulbs
from the wild per year for export to dealers around the globe."

This reminds me of a story about Wayne Roderick who also loved native
bulbs and would take visitors from other countries to see them in the
wild, but would threaten to leave them without transportation back if
they dared to dig a bulb.

Mary Sue

On 7/17/2023 4:38 PM, Paige Woodward via pbs wrote:

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