Thorburn's Nursery

"Thorburn & Co., New York, founded in 1805 by Grant Thorburn {the original of "Lawrie Todd" in the novel by Thomas Galt). Before he sold seeds he had a shop where he sold flower-pots and when unable to get seeds, he had to grow them and hence became the first seedsman. Catalogue 1918."--1939 AIS Checklist.

Note; For its time, the firm offered a comparable number of Irises to other catalogs in its period. For example in 1888 it offered seed of Iris tenax and mixed plants of Japanese Irises and mixed germanica. By 1904 there were over a dozen Japanese listed by name and another dozen of other types. The 1891 catalog was probably one of the first to offer seed of Iris pabularia. For a listing of 115+ Thorburn Catalogs go to the Biodiversity Heritage Library with this link; http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/125384#/titles

Master list

-- BobPries - 2015-06-30