Oklahoma Native Plant Record 55 Volume 13, December 2013 Critic’s Choice Essay A CAVALCADE OF FIELD BOTANISTS IN OKLAHOMA − CONTRIBUTORS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE FLORA OF OKLAHOMA Ronald J. Tyrl Paula A. Shryock Dept. of Botany Oklahoma State University As members of the Oklahoma Native Francisco Vásquez de Coronado—Our Plant Society (ONPS) well know, Oklahoma cavalcade of field botanists begins with has a tremendous diversity of vascular Coronado, whose 1540–1542 expedition in plants—174 families, 854 genera, and search of the fabled city of gold is the first approximately 2,600 species—that reflects the documented trek by Europeans across the ecogeographic diversity present within the plains and prairies later to become Oklahoma. state’s borders (Tyrl et al. 2008). Our Coronado was not a botanist nor was there a knowledge of this flora is the result of botanist with his group. He did not make a list contributions by numerous individuals for of the plants that he saw on his expedition, more than 450 years. Some simply recorded but he did describe the general appearance of their observations of the state’s flora as they the country. Describing his journey northward passed through; whereas, others made through Oklahoma, he wrote in his report to systematic surveys and documented their Emperor Charles V of Spain: “…there is not any work by actually collecting plants for voucher kind of wood in all these plains, away from the gullies specimens to be deposited in herbaria. and rivers which are very few.” (Dale and Rader These individuals and the contributions 1930). that they have made to our knowledge of the plants and vegetation of Oklahoma are the subject of this essay. Its title and concept are rooted in a presidential address given by H.I. Featherly in 1942 to the Oklahoma Academy of Science and a master’s thesis by Wanona Henson, one of his graduate students (Henson 1941; Featherly 1943). We have unabashedly adopted their approach and excerpted some of their thoughts about the state’s first field botanists in our synopses. As they did, we present our individuals more or less chronologically. Each synopsis comprises a brief biographical sketch and the botanical contribution(s) they made. When specific plants are cited, currently accepted scientific names are used unless otherwise noted. Common names are taken from Taylor and Figure 1 Putative route of Coronado’s travel Taylor (1994), Tyrl and coworkers (2008), in Oklahoma (Buchanan and Dale 1939). Folley (2011), and USDA, NRCS (2013). Ronald J. Tyrl and Paula A. Shryock https://doi.org/10.22488/okstate.17.100099 56 Oklahoma Native Plant Record Volume 13, December 2013 It is thought that his route northward was marks the western boundary of the body of along the 98th Meridian. He possibly passed Oklahoma (Figure 2). His return from Quivira between the Wichita and Arbuckle Mountains, in modern-day Kansas, a city that he thought through the El Reno area, and on north to the was going to be a source of wealth but was Arkansas River (Buchanan and Dale 1939; actually a village of semi-nomadic Plains Figure 1 above). Indians, ran along the course of what was Hodge (1907) suggested that his route was later to be known as the Cimarron Cut-Off of perhaps closer to the 100th Meridian which the Santa Fe Trail. Figure 2 Putative route of Coronado’s travel in Oklahoma (Hodge 1907). Juan de Oñate—In 1601, Juan de Oñate, not a botanist and did not have one with him. governor of New Mexico, led another However, in his report of the journey (1601), expedition into the North, also in search of he described the surrounding landscape— Quivira. The map he drew of his route shows sand dunes, extensive level plains, deep that he also crossed Oklahoma (Bolton 1916). ravines, and broken hills. These are now Entering the state from the west at about known as the geomorphic provinces: Western 36° N in Ellis County, he followed the Sand Dune Belts, Central Redbed Plains, Canadian River (which he named the Western Sandstone Hills, and Cimarron Magdalena), angled to the northeast, and Gypsum Hills (Curtis and Ham 1972). He also exited at about 98° W near Manchester in cited the edible plants his group encountered. Grant County. Like Coronado, de Oñate was Ronald J. Tyrl and Paula A. Shryock Oklahoma Native Plant Record 57 Volume 13, December 2013 For example, he wrote: topographic features of the country through which he passed. He also made brief notes on And the fruits gave no less pleasure, particularly the vegetation and some of the plants he the plums, of a hundred thousand different kinds, encountered, but he did not make a formal list as mellow and good as those which grow in the of the plants seen. His report, included in choicest orchards of our land. They are so good Pike’s (1810) report of the expedition to the that although eaten by thousands they never government, was the first description of a part injured anybody. The trees were small, but their of Oklahoma by an American (Dale and fruit was more plentiful than their leaves, and they Rader 1930). were so abundant that in more than one hundred and fifty leagues, hardly a day passed without George C. Sibley—A brief seeing groves of them, and also grapevines such acknowledgement of George Sibley’s that although they hid the view in many places observations of one of Oklahoma’s most they produced sweet and delicious grapes. interesting ecogeographic sites is appropriate. Appointed in 1808 as the head trader at the De Oñate undoubtedly was describing Indian Factory at Fort Osage, Missouri, he led thickets of sand plums (Prunus angustifolia). a party of interpreters and Osage scouts on a After crossing the Cimarron River, he wrote: two-month exploration in May 1811, intended to improve relations between the Kansa and …for many leagues…the fields there were covered the Pawnee Indians and to examine the with flowers of a thousand different kinds, so hunting grounds of the Osage Indians (Tyson thick that they choked the pasture. The cattle of 2009). During his visit with the Osage at this territory must eat the flowers far better than villages along the Arkansas River near the ours are wont to, because wherever they were there mouth of the Verdigris River, Sibley traveled were multitudes of cattle. to the Great Salt Plains. Calling the area the “Grand Saline,” he described the plains by James Biddle Wilkinson—The person writing: credited with the first official description of the ecogeography of Oklahoma was This beautiful white dazzling surface (bordered by Lieutenant J.B. Wilkinson, a member of the a fringe of verdant green) has the effect of looming, Zebulon Pike Expedition of 1806 and 1807 to as the sailors call it, producing to the unpracticed explore the poorly defined south and west eye, much delusion. boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase where it abutted the region claimed by Spain (Jackson As de Oñate had done, he feasted on sand 1966). Pike left Fort Bellefontaine near St. plums and recorded in his diary: Louis; followed the Missouri, Osage, and Republican Rivers; and eventually traveled …barren sand hills (not red sand) on the sides of overland to reach the Arkansas River near the which are here and there a few dwarf plum bushes present day town of Great Bend, Kansas. On not over thirty inches high from which we gathered October 28th, 1806, Pike divided his group abundance of very large delicious red plums. into two parties and assigned Lt. Wilkinson (Sibley 1927) and five men the task of following the Arkansas River downstream to its junction Sibley also noted in his diary that, according with the Mississippi River. On December 31, to the Osage Indians accompanying him, he the party passed the mouth of the Poteau was the first white man to visit the area. He River at the eastern edge of Oklahoma also visited an area he called the "Rock Saline" (Buchanan and Dale 1939). Wilkinson made that is probably the salt springs near the extensive notes on the geographic and Ronald J. Tyrl and Paula A. Shryock 58 Oklahoma Native Plant Record Volume 13, December 2013 Blaine Escarpment on the upper Cimarron botanist John Windsor. As an apprentice River (Tyson 2009). printer, Nuttall was likely involved in the printing of the Liverpool museum’s catalogue Thomas Nuttall—An Englishman from of plant and animal specimens, arranged Yorkshire, England, Thomas Nuttall (Figure 3) according to the Linnean system of is generally acknowledged to be the first classification. botanist to visit what is now Oklahoma When Nuttall’s seven-year apprenticeship (Featherly 1943). Although he had no formal ended in 1807, he refused to join his uncle’s education, he published papers and books in printing company and decided to pursue a botany, geology, and zoology. He was among career in natural history. Why he chose to the first individuals to champion the use of a travel to North America is unknown, although natural classification for plants in the United Graustein suggested that he may have been States, and he authored a botany textbook influenced by his reading of Francois André (Lawrence 1951; Graustein 1967). His two Michaux’s 1805 Travels to the Westward of the volume A Manual of the Ornithology of the United Allegheny Mountains in the States of The Ohio, States and of Canada, published in 1832 and Kentucky and Tennessee in the Year 1802 and/or 1834, was the first systematic treatment of Alexander von Humboldt and Aime North American birds.