Old growth

Yale Peabody Museum

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When Roswell Moore (1761–1847) of Southington, Connecticut, began collecting and pressing local flora in the early 1800s, did he have an idea that his collection would one day be a kind of time capsule of New England plant life? That’s how the Yale Peabody Museum views Moore’s collection of more than 100 specimens, which his descendants recently donated to the museum. Accompanied by a handwritten index, the plants were mounted on thin paper (or stored inside issues of the Connecticut Courant, in some cases). Susan Butts, the Peabody’s director of collections and research, says the specimens are useful sources of data that can help researchers “better understand floristic change in Connecticut and New England over the past two centuries.”