The house was designed in 1810 by architect Ithiel Town in the Federal style for the first head of the Harvard Botanic Garden, and has been the residence of ornithologist Thomas Nuttall and botanist Asa Gray.
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As it also occurs in Veracruz, it was long confused with I. purga, even by such eminent botanists as David Don, Thomas Nuttall or C.J.W. Schiede.
It was first described by J. K. Townsend in 1837, from a specimen collected on a trip he took with Thomas Nuttall, under the name Fringilla bicolor.