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Asa Gray's Plant Geography and Collecting Networks (1830S-1860S)

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Asa Gray's Plant Geography and Collecting Networks (1830S-1860S) Finding Patterns in Nature: Asa Gray's Plant Geography and Collecting Networks (1830s-1860s) The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Hung, Kuang-Chi. 2013. Finding Patterns in Nature: Asa Gray's Citation Plant Geography and Collecting Networks (1830s-1860s). Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Accessed April 17, 2018 4:20:57 PM EDT Citable Link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11181178 This article was downloaded from Harvard University's DASH Terms of Use repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA (Article begins on next page) Finding Patterns in Nature: Asa Gray’s Plant Geography and Collecting Networks (1830s-1860s) A dissertation presented by Kuang-Chi Hung to The Department of the History of Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History of Science Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts July 2013 © 2013–Kuang-Chi Hung All rights reserved Dissertation Advisor: Janet E. Browne Kuang-Chi Hung Finding Patterns in Nature: Asa Gray’s Plant Geography and Collecting Networks (1830s-1860s) Abstract It is well known that American botanist Asa Gray’s 1859 paper on the floristic similarities between Japan and the United States was among the earliest applications of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory in plant geography. Commonly known as Gray’s “disjunction thesis,” Gray's diagnosis of that previously inexplicable pattern not only provoked his famous debate with Louis Agassiz but also secured his role as the foremost advocate of Darwin and Darwinism in the United States. Making use of previously unknown archival materials, this dissertation examines the making of Gray’s disjunction thesis and its relation to his collecting networks. I first point out that, as far back as the 1840s, Gray had identified remarkable “analogies” between the flora of East Asia and that of North America. By analyzing Gray and his contemporaries’ “free and liberal exchange of specimens,” I argue that Gray at the time was convinced that “a particular plan” existed in nature, and he considered that the floristic similarities between Japan and eastern North America manifested this plan. In the 1850s, when Gray applied himself to enumerating collections brought back by professional collectors supported by the subscription system and appointed in governmental surveying expeditions, his view of nature was then replaced by one that regarded the flora as merely “a catalogue of species.” I argue that it was by iii undertaking the manual labor of cataloging species and by charging subscription fees for catalogued species that Gray established his status as a metropolitan botanist and as the “mint” that produced species as a currency for transactions in botanical communities. Finally, I examine the Gray-Darwin correspondence in the 1850s and the expedition that brought Gray’s collector to Japan. I argue that Gray’s thesis cannot be considered Darwinian as historians of science have long understood the term, and that its conception was part of the United States’ scientific imperialism in East Asia. In light of recent studies focusing on the history of field sciences, this dissertation urges that a close examination of a biogeographical discovery like Gray’s thesis is impossible without considering the institutional, cultural, and material aspects that tie the closets of naturalists to the field destinations of collectors. iv CONTENT List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgments x Introduction 1 PART I. BOTANIST 1. To be a Botanist 58 2. Being a Botanist 114 PART II. COLLECTOR 3. “All the Collectors Make Money” 165 4. “A Bad Business” 205 5. “Charles Wright of Texas” 256 6. “A Complete Catalogue of Species of the United States” 311 PART III. TWO CHARLESES 7. “Empire of Commerce and of Science” 374 8. “The Field of the Work of the American Surveying Expedition” 443 9. “A Nut for Agassiz to Crack” 501 10. “A Passport to Observation” 562 Conclusion 621 Bibliography 660 v ILLUSTRATIONS I-1. The type specimen of Heliotropium japonicum 2 I-2. The Stamp of Asa Gray 8 I-3. A closet botanist at work 12 I-4. A collector at work 13 I-5. The cruise of the Vincennes 40 I-6. An unpublished painting of Rubus wrightii 42 I-7. The first page of a letter Wright sent home from Hakodate in 1855. 50 I-8. Charles Wright at rest 53 I-9. Charles Darwin “in motion” 54 1-1. Gray’s specimen of Claytonia caroliniana 59 1-2. Gray and Torrey in the early 1840s. 60 1-3. Gray’s notes taken during his expedition to the Carolinas 90 1-4. Lilium grayi 91 1-5. Gray in his early thirties 92 1-6. Gray’s botanical microscope 100 1-7. The Garden House 102 2-1. Gray and his botanical circle 125 2-2. A specimen enclosed in a letter from Charles Wright to his botanical 140 friends 2-3. Pulsatilla patens 154 2-4. Jane Gray 162 vi 3-1. Ferdinand Lindheimer 173 3-2. Cirsium filipendulum 175 3-3. Gaura lindheimeri 190 3-4. “Plantae Lindheimerianae, Part 1” (1845) 192 3-5. The “distribution list” for Lindheimer’s collections made in 1843-1844 202 4-1. Abutilon holosericeum 225 4-2. Plantae Fendlerianae Novi-Mexicanae 233 4-3. Gray’s letter to Engelmann in October 1850 234 4-4. “Hurrah for a new Cuscuta!” 240 4-5. Gray’s letter to Engelmann in September 1848 242 4-6. Engelmann’s map prepared for his account of the “botanico- 244 geographical distribution” 4-7. William Hooker and Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle 249 5-1. The same map Gray used to describe Wright’s 1849 expedition 273 5-2. The route of Wright’s 1849 expedition 286 5-3. Amaranthus fimbriatus 291 6-1. Spencer F. Baird in 1845 318 6-2. The illustrations Baird and his assistant Charles Frederic Girard 321 prepared for Directions. 6-3. Wright’s major botanizing ground in 1851 328 6-4. “Valley leading to Santa Cruz, Sonora” 333 6-5. William H. Emory between 1855-1865 341 6-6. “Cataloging and Classification of Specimens” 365 vii 6-7. Thurberia thespesioides 368 7-1. The three major vessels in the NPEE 376 7-2. Cadwalader Ringgold between 1860 and 1870 378 7-3. Lafitau’s illustration showing the ginseng discovered in North America 395 7-4. Toxicodendron vernix 398 7-5. Kaempfer’s “sitz dsju” 399 7-6. Salamandra maxima 407 7-7. Scheuchzer’s Homo diluvii testis (left) and Cuvier’s correction (right) 409 7-8. Menopoma alleghaniensis 411 7-9. Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) 412 7-10. The illustrations Agassiz used in his Twelve Lectures and the drafts 417 7-11. Joseph Dalton Hooker 428 7-12. Charles Darwin in 1855 439 8-1. John Rodgers between 1860 and 1865 445 8-2. Wright’s sketch showing the track of the cruise of the Vincennes from 448 Hong Kong to Japan 8-3. A page of Wright’s “Report of Botanical Collections,” prepared in the 450 early part of the NPEE 8-4. “They are alarmed at our approach” 477 8-5. The track of the Vincennes’s two cruises to Japan and its neighboring 496 areas (1854-1855) 9-1. The cover page of Vischer's Views of California, 1862. 505 9-2. Bigelow’s “Botanical Profile” 507 viii 9-3. Alexander Carl Heinrich Braun in 1850 529 9-4. George Bentham in 1861 538 9-5. Tricercandra quadrifolia 559 10-1. The Japanese officers 564 10-2. “Women admiring a watch in Japan” 574 10-3. “They crowded around in their primitive costume” 577 10-4. “Settle a difference of opinion” 581 10-5. The map produced by Brooke from his reconnaissance of the 590 coastline from Shimoda to Hakodate 10-6. Exploring the “backstage” of Hakodate 597 10-7. Caulophyllum robustum 602 10-8. Foreigners’ collecting activities from the Japanese point of view 605 10-9. Bathing performance 607 C-1. Gray’s “tabular view of the distribution of species” 623 C-2. The chart of the North Pacific produced based on the NPEE 643 ix Acknowledgements This dissertation is about an American scientist and his mentors and friends, and it could not have been completed without its author’s mentors and friends. Although some five years have passed, I still can clearly recall the moment when I decided to choose American botanist Asa Gray as the central figure in my dissertation. That was the summer of 2009, when I was studying Japanese in Yokohama. One afternoon I visited the Yokohama Archives of History to see an exhibit designed to celebrate Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s historic visit to Yokohama in 1854. There I saw a botanical report authored by Asa Gray, displayed alongside Perry’s portrait, as well as a wide array of objects commemorating this watershed encounter that dramatically altered the relationship between the East and the West. “I know who this Asa Gray is,” I thought, staring at the report. In Prof. Janet Browne and Prof. Everett Mendelsohn’s “Rethinking Darwinism” class, I had learned Gray’s heroic role in introducing Darwinism to American society, in integrating the theory of natural selection with natural theology, in initiating the first Darwinian debate in the United States, and so on. But what was Gray’s role in Perry’s military and diplomatic expedition to Japan? I aspired to find the answer. A four-year odyssey began. A close, almost biographical study of any nineteenth-century American man or woman of science is never easy, particularly for an international student like me.
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