Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Rachel takes to Twitter to celebrate our 60th anniversary For our 50th anniversary we showed the gems from our collection, and the accompanying exhibition catalogue is still available. For our 60th anniversary we're going to focus more closely on our founder, Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt, and the construction of a new home for her library. By 19601961 Rachel had long ago built her collection of botanical books, artwork and autograph letters. This is not Rachel the collector....Continue reading

18(1) Huntia published If International travel during a pandemic fills you with trepidation, let Huntia be your virtual travel planner. In this issue we deliver safe and convenient travel to Haiti. No masks or social distancing are needed. Authors Javier Francisco-Ortega, Nicolas André, Liesl Picard, Rose Adme, William Cinea, Brígido Peguero, Geoffrey Hall, Luc Brouillet, Brett Jestrow and Scott Zona provide commentaries and an English translation of Brother Marie-Victorin's ...account of his second trip to Haiti. They also catalogue the collection of 31 photographs that were taken during this visit. You'll notice that this issue is a little light. With the uncertainties caused by the pandemic, we thought it best to publish as articles are finished instead of waiting for a nicely stuffed issue. Volume 18 will likely stretch to four issues in our usual roughly 200 pages. Use that bandwidth responsibly. You can binge that television show you know by heart, or you can expand your mind with a deep dive into our Huntia archive. From volume 1 in 1964 when Huntia was a yearbook of botanical and horticultural bibliography to the current 18(1) issue, every article is available online and ready to transport you around the globe and through botanical history. Who else can offer that? Get comfy, stay safe and happy reading. If you're ready to write your own adventure in botanical history, check out the topics and submission guidelines available on the Huntia page.

Graphics Manager Frank Reynolds retires It is with happiness and sadness that we announce that our colleague and friend Frank Reynolds has decided to retirehappy for Franksad for us. His last day was 31 August. Frank has quietly worked at the Institute 40 years. Director Emeritus Robert Kiger and I remember standing in the front office when Frank walked off the elevator and asked if there were any openings. He had worked here under the first Director, George Lawrence. We sw...ooped him up as Operations Assistant, then Operations Manager and finally Graphics Manager. Frank made lists for everything we owned. Dozens of baby food jars emptied by his three children are tucked away all over the Institute, filled with who knows what! Every nut and bolt we ownand there are hundreds of poundsis carefully organized. Frank has the mind of an engineer. He solved problems constructed by the rest of the staff. His contraptions to photograph difficult objects were epic. Then there was his photography, some of the finest work I have seen. There is no better photographer of botanical art around, and he cannot be replacedperiod. I asked him what was his greatest accomplishment or most rewarding project during his long career at the Hunt Institute. Without hesitation he said the Sessé & Mociño CD (https://www.huntbotanical.org/publications/show.php?163). T. D. Jacobsen Director

Institute remains closed to the public Carnegie Mellon University has reopened for classes 31 August, but the Hunt Institute remains closed to the public for the fall semester. In the meantime our Web site (https://www.huntbotanical.org/) is always open, and you can contact us (https://www.huntbotanical.org/contact/). We will be working on site as the university permits as well as remotely from home. We will continue to answer questions and provide research material to the degree that we have physical access to the collections. Our ability to service photo requests is limited. There will be no fall exhibition nor onsite tours or meetings with the curators. We appreciate your patience in these trying times. Please stay safe until we can once again welcome you to the botanical tranquility of our walnut-walled lobby.