BOTANY

When he was a boy, Bailey made the acquaintance of Lucy Millington, a botanist from New York, who helped him identify a grass-like plant in the sedge family (Carex). Mrs. Millington told him stories of botanical excursions to the Adirondacks and took him on collecting trips in South Haven. She later gave him her vasculum (plant collecting case), in which she had carried the first specimen of the spruce mistletoe (Arceuthobium pusillum), which she had discovered. Later Bailey recalled:

She told me the names of my plants and pronounced the strange words as if they were her common speech.... She left me a precious memento, which I still cherish. It is a small botany-case, painted bright red when she gave it to me and which I yet keep in that color.... This collecting-case I carried through my college years and long thereafter.

Vasculum

Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium Collection

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