Catherine “Kate” Furbish devoted much of her life to collecting, classifying, and painting Maine plants. Known in northern Maine as the “Posey-Woman,” she assembled more than 4,000 sheets of dried plants and ferns while creating a substantial illustrated record of the state’s flora.
Education and an emerging interest in plants
Furbish moved to Brunswick with her family in 1835. The town’s varied plant life would become central to her work. Her education included painting and French literature, and she spent a year in Paris refining her artistic skills.
Her serious study of botany developed after she attended lectures by George L. Goodale in Boston in 1860. Long before then, walks through Brunswick had helped her learn plant names and cultivate an interest in the outdoors.
Fieldwork across Maine
In the spring of 1870, Furbish began collecting local plants and painting detailed botanical illustrations. Largely self-taught, she traveled throughout Maine to gather, classify, sketch, and paint specimens. Her fieldwork carried her through deep woods, swamps, and difficult terrain, often using a raft or rowboat to reach a plant.
Her most intensive collecting and painting took place from 1870 to 1908. She relied on her Boston lectures and Asa Gray’s botany manual to confirm identifications, recording fine details in field sketches before producing finished paintings.
After the deaths of her parents in 1873, she traveled in the Northeast and stayed with relatives. She returned to Brunswick in 1875 and renewed her commitment to documenting Maine’s flowering plants. She also spent time in Boston developing her ability to paint living specimens.
Furbish’s lousewort
During an 1880 collecting trip in Aroostook County, Furbish encountered an unfamiliar lousewort along the St. John River. The rare plant, associated with a limited stretch of riverbank habitat, was named for her by botanists and is now known as Furbish’s lousewort.
A botanical discovery with a conservation legacy
The plant was later believed extinct, but it was rediscovered in 1976 along the St. John River. Its protected status became an important issue in debate over the proposed Dickey-Lincoln dam and reservoir, a project that was not built.
Professional recognition
By the 1880s, Furbish had gained the respect of prominent botanists, including Asa Gray. She helped establish the Josselyn Botanical Society of Maine in 1894 and served as its president in 1911 and 1912. She lectured to groups, published botanical articles, and continued her work into her nineties.
Collections and legacy
Furbish died in Brunswick on December 6, 1931, at age 97. Her collection of approximately 4,000 dried plants is held by Harvard University’s Gray Herbarium. A collection of 182 dried ferns went to the Portland Society of Natural History.
She presented her Illustrated Flora—16 large portfolios of watercolor drawings—to Bowdoin College in Brunswick. Together, her specimens and paintings preserve an extensive record of Maine’s plant life while her namesake lousewort connects nineteenth-century botanical inquiry with modern conservation history.
Additional resources
- Coburn, Louise Helen. Kate Furbish, Botanist: An Appreciation. 1924.
- Graham, Ada and Frank Graham Jr. Kate Furbish and the Flora of Maine. Gardiner, Maine: Tilbury House, 1995.
- Potter, David M. Conservation Strategy for Furbish Lousewort (Pedicularis furbishiae) Habitat on the St. John River, Maine. Augusta, Maine: Maine State Planning Office, 1991.
- Schwarten, Lazella. “Kate Furbish,” in Notable American Women. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971, vol. 1, pp. 686–687.
This entry summarizes historical biographical and botanical material for general reference.