The Changing Face of Western Botany
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The Changing Face Of Western Botany By BARBARA ERTTER Adapted from a talk at the Native Plant Society of Oregon An- creased to nearly 10,000. Linnaeus, like his contemporaries, nual Banquet, 14 May 1994, in Ash/and, Oregon; dedicated to tried to assign each of these plants a descriptive phrase in Latin John Thomas (Tom) Howell, 1904-1994. As general references (the universal tongue used by scholars throughout Europe). on the following history of botany in the western United States, However, he also provided a single-word epithet for each see McKelvey (1955), Keeney (1992), Reveal (1972), and Reveal species in a genus. Linnaeus himself considered the resultant and Pringle (1993). binomial to be a trivial nickname, of little significance, but this "trivial name" is what caught on and earned Linnaeus Science does not occur in a vacuum, and the juxtaposition his own descriptive phrase, "Father of Taxonomy." of philosophies and realities that shape the face of science undergo major shifts over extended periods of time. My Once his fame was established, Linnaeus seldom ventured far original title, "The New Face of Western Botany;' became from home, depending instead on the steady stream of "The Changing Face" when I realized that "Western Botany" novelties collected by his disciples and correspondents from has already gone through several "New Faces." The contem- around the globe. This system of an institution-based expert porary shift that first caught my attention is only the latest providing a clearinghouse for a network of field-based con- in a long series. Furthermore, the develoment of "Western tributors proved to be very effective. Plant exploration requires Botany;' intended to refer to the western United States, is covering vast areas, generally far from population centers, bur rooted in the history of western civilization in general, begin- the analysis of the resultant collections requires the resources ning in Europe. of a major herbarium, with abundant comparative material and library facilities. The initial cataloguing of the New World Folk Taxonomy And Classical Roots flora therefore occurred as a function of travelling collectors sending specimens to the great herbaria in Europe, where the In prehistoric Europe, as in the rest of the world, the first type specimens of so many common American species are Face of Botany, the first knowledge of plants by humans, was located as a result. not a specialized branch of learning belonging only to an elite (or eccentric) intelligentsia. Rather, every member of a pre- Establishment Of American Botany agricultural society depended on an intimate knowledge of the local flora, for food, medicine, and a diversity of other In the decades following the American Revolution, resident uses. Taxonomic and floristic information were part of the botanists in the eastern United States gradually built up suf- essential cultural heritage of a society, amassed and transmit- ficient expertise and herbaria to declare botanical in- ted orally over the span of uncounted generations. For this dependence from European centers. The first center of transmission to occur, the components of the surrounding flora American botany was, appropriately enough, Philadelphia, needed to be labeled. The folk taxonomies resulting from this where American political independence had been declared. preliterate naming of plants have been studied by ethnobot- anists such as Brent Berlin (1992). Those of Greece and Rome The center shifted in fact provide the core of our current taxonomic north in the early nomenclature, introduced into written history by Theo- 1800's, triggered by phrastus, the "Father of Botany." the establishment by David Hosack of the The works of Theophrastus and the equally esteemed early Elgin Botanic Gar- Roman authority Dioscorides suffered the same fate as did den in New York, those of other classical sources during the Middle Ages, the first public gar- becoming allegorized for their putative Christian symbolism den in the United and enshrined as immutable, unchallengeable authorities. States. The garden Also parallel to other disciplines, botanical knowledge expand- itself failed (situated ed during the Renaissance. The development of the printing at the current site of press played a significant role, in that the beautiful herbals Rockefeller Center, that had previously been laboriously hand-copied could now it was considered too be more widely available. As a result, it became increasingly far from New York evident that the 600 or so plants known to classical authorities City), but Hosack were not in fact all that existed, as had once been believed. influenced Amos Eaton, a law student, Linnaean Names And Networks to take up botany. In Asa Gray turn, "When he was Any final resistance to the heresy that different kinds of jailed for his dealings in a troublesome land sale, Eaton taught plants occurred in different parts of the world was washed away the young son of the prison's fiscal agent his first lessons in by the tidal wave of novelties arriving from distant shores. Dur- the Linnaean method; the youngster was John Torrey" (Reveal ing the 250 years between Columbus and Linnaeus, the & Pringle, 1993). Torrey (Torreya) ended up at Columbia Col- number of different plants known to European botanists in- lege; he in turn inspired Asa Gray (Grayia), who founded the 18 Kalmiopsis 1995 Gray Herbarium at Harvard University. Together, Torrey and leaving the land battle to European claimants, particularly Gray ("T. & a") formed the clearinghouse and new voice of Spain, Russia, and Great Britain. The latter's presence in the authority for American botany during much of the 19th century. region was primarily in the form of fur-trading enterprises; British trading posts on the Columbia River provided bases for British botanical explorers, generally in the company of Early Exploration Of Western North America fur trappers and other explorers. Turning finally to western North America, the pattern of Douglas And Nuttall increasing autonomy is continued. We tend to forget how far the West Coast was from the centers of Western civilization during this period. The Panama Canal did not exist, so the Undoubtedly the entire coast of South America was more accessible to explora- most significant of the botanical collec- tion than was western North America. Even Australia was bet- tors during this ter known, by virtue of its status as a British colony. Further- period was David more, the United States was only a minor player during this Douglas (Douglas-fir, period, having just recently come into existence as an indepen- Douglasia), from dent nation. Scotland. Douglas collected plants The earliest collections from western North America were throughout the Brit- therefore samplings taken along the Pacific coast by European ish territories of exploring expeditions, who were primarily interested in seek- western North Am- ing profitable trade items and unclaimed lands. The first erica in the 1820's species described from the West Coast was the sand verbena, and 1830's. As a Abronia umbeUata (Nyctaginaceae), grown from seed sent to British subject, France from California in 1786 (the ill-fated Laperouse expedi- Douglas had access tion itself subse- to the resources of quently perished in the Hudson's Bay the South Pacific). Company, a distinct Other expeditions advantage unavail- David Douglas nibbled the coast- able to explorers of line, such as a Brit- other nationalities. Douglas was part of William Jackson ish surveying expedi- Hooker's network; his descriptions and names routinely ap- tion commanded by- pear in Lindley's Botanical Register ("Dougl. ex Lindl."). Captain George Vancouver (Van- Another particularly noteworthy collector during this early couveria) in the period was Thomas Nuttall ("Nutt.," Comas nuttallii), an 1790's, which in- Englishman working out of Philadelphia. In 1834, at the age cluded the Scottish of 48, Nuttall made the strenuous overland journey across the naturalist-surgeon Rocky Mountains, in the company of Nathanial Wyeth Archibald Menzies (Wyethia), a merchant from Boston who wanted to break into OvIenziesia, Pseudo- the lucrative fur-trading business (Wyeth built Fort Hall in tsuga menziesii). The what is now southern Idaho, but the venture failed when the Russian presence British built Fort Boise in direct competition). While Nuttall during this period is described much of his own material, many names first appear evidenced by such in Torrey and Gray's Flora of North America. eponyms as Roman- zoffia. Archibald Menzies The hazards and handicaps encountered beyond the frontiers by these early collectors were considerable, and not always ap- The only expedition from the United States during this early preciated by their institution-based collaborators. Douglas' rela- period was the one led by Meriwether Lewis (Lewisia) and tionship with his sponsor Hooker, for example, was often William Clark (Clarkia) in 1805-1806, up the Missouri River strained as a result. Keep in mind the limited transportation and across the Continental Divide to the mouth of the Col- options, or the lack of medical treatment when constantly umbia River. The expedition was established by President encountering grizzly bears, rattlesnakes, and other dangers. Thomas Jefferson to survey the newly acquired Louisiana Ter- And how do you dry your collections after your boat has cap- ritory (which Napoleon had sold in order to concentrate on sized, as happened to Nuttall? Consider also that you were European domination). By a complicated turn of events, the likely to be trespassing into the territory of various Native plants collected as part of the Lewis and Clark expedition were Americans who might not welcome interlopers. The amel- described not in Philadelphia, where the specimens are now iorating factor was that the natives often treated foreign plant housed, but in England. collectors with the same combination of respect and fear ac- corded to their own plant-collecting shamans and healers (or The fledgling United States, however, was not in a position maybe just considered them "touched by spirits" and well to follow up on any incipient claims to the West Coast, worth leaving alone).