Views from a 1910 Botanical Expedition through Western Cuba

By Dr. Emily Sessions

Apr 22 2021

New York Botanical Garden led around 136 botanical expeditions between 1898 and 1918. Half of these were to the Caribbean, and twenty – one in seven of all expeditions led by the Garden for the first twenty years – were to Cuba specifically.

These photos were taken on an expedition made by Nathaniel Lord Britton, Elizabeth Knight Britton, and Dr. C. Stuart Gager in 1910 and published in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden as “Botanical Exploration in Western Cuba.” They reinforce Britton’s representation of Cuba as a lush tropical island ready for US ventures.

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Dr. Emily Sessions is the current 2020-21 Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in at the Humanities Institute of the New York Botanical Garden.