Maine Atlas, the Office of the Maine Secretary of State
A black and white stereoscopic double-image card showing a woman sitting inside a Victorian-style bedroom with patterned wallpaper, an easel holding artwork near a window, and a wooden chest of drawers.

Catherine "Kate" Furbish

A room in the Furbish House at 10 Cumberland Street, Brunswick c.1880. Kate Furbish probably is the woman sitting in the rocking chair. Photo: Pejepscot History Center.

Catherine “Kate” Furbish grew up in in Brunswick, Maine, where she developed a passionate interest for wildflowers. Like many young women of her time, Kate pursued a genteel education, which included painting and the study of French literature; she even spent a year in Paris perfecting her painting. In 1860, however, a serious interest in science gripped Furbish after she attended a series of botany lectures in Boston by George L. Goodale, later a professor of botany at Harvard. By 1880 she had earned respect among well-known naturalists, including the eminent American botanist Asa Gray. 

In 1894, Furbish also helped found the Josselyn Botanical Society of Maine and she served as president in 1911. Furbish devoted many decades and thousands of miles to document Maine's native flora, creating beautifully detailed drawings and watercolors. Kate Furbish's name gained fame in 1976 when the wild snapdragon, named the Furbish lousewort, was rediscovered (it was believed to be extinct) during the construction of a $1.3 million hydroelectric plant and dam on the St. John River.. This discovery helped stall and eventually stop the building of the Dickey-Lincoln dam and reservoir on the St. John's River, which would have flooded 88,000 acres of northern Maine forests.

Over the course of her life, Furbish collected over 1,300 watercolors and pressings in a 14-volume book she titled "Flora of Maine." In 1908 she sought to distribute her work and bequeathed the book to Bowdoin College. An additional 182 pressed ferns were donated to the Portland Society of Natural History, and her 4,000 pressings of dried plants to the New England Botanical Club (now Harvard University's Gray Herbarium). Altogether, her work documents the flora of more than 200 towns across Maine. After decades of fragile health, she died of cardiac hypertrophy at the age of 97 on December 6, 1931.

 

Josselyn Botanical Society
A vintage sepia-toned bust portrait of a woman with her hair styled up, facing slightly right. She is wearing dark, dangling earrings and a light-colored high-collared dress adorned with a lace neckpiece.
Kate Furbish c. 1880. Photo: Pejepscot History Center.
A scanned herbarium sheet showing a pressed plant specimen of Pedicularis furbishiae with its roots and fern-like leaves, accompanied by handwritten descriptive notes on lined paper and a Kodak color control patch.
Pressing of the Pedicularis furbishiae discovered near the St. John's River in 1880. Photo: Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries.
A botanical watercolor illustration of a nodding trillium plant, featuring three large green leaves radiating from a single central stem with a white, downward-facing flower blooming at the center.
'Nodding Trillium (Trillium Cernuum)', s.d. watercolour. Photo: courtesy George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick.
Vintage cabinet card photograph of a woman in profile wearing a dark Victorian dress with a lace collar and drop earring, from the Reed studio, Main & Cumberland Streets, Brunswick, Maine.
Studio portrait of Furbish later in her life. Photo: Josselyn Botanical Society.
A botanical watercolor illustration depicting a showy lady's slipper orchid, with broad, striped green leaves, detailed brown roots at the base, and two white-and-pink pouch-shaped blossoms.
Showy Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium Reginae), s.d. watercolour. Photo: Courtesy George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library.
A white herbarium sheet displaying multiple pressed, dried botanical specimens of Pedicularis furbishiae stems, leaves, and yellow-brown flowers, stamped with a pink "Gray Herbarium Harvard University" seal.
Furbish’s Lousewort, Fort Kent, 1881. Photo: Harvard University Herbarium.

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