Copyright © 1984 Ohio Acad. Sci. 0030-0950/84/0004-0148 $5.00/0 EARLY OHIO BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE HERBARIUM1 RONALD L. STUCKEY, Department of Botany, College of Biological Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 ABSTRACT. It was nearly 90 years after Ohio was admitted to the Union before a State Herbarium was organized in Columbus. The earliest collections of vascular plants in the state were made by Manasseh Cutler (1788), Andre Michaux (1793), Frangois Andre Michaux(1802), and Thomas Nuttall (1810, 1816). By 1810, permanent residents began recording the flora and preparing herbarium specimens. First among these was Dr. Daniel Drake of Cincinnati, who was foremost in promoting the study of botany in the Ohio Valley. During the 1830s, the golden years of plant collecting by the pioneer botanists in Ohio, Drake's efforts came to fruition in his student, Dr. John L. Riddell, who through his field work, teaching, and publications on the flora and techniques for making herbarium specimens, involved a number of individuals in the study of botany early in the decade. Many of these individuals contributed specimens to the Flora of North America project of Drs. John Torrey and Asa Gray of New York City later in the decade. At this time, institutional herbaria were formed within newly organized sci- entific, medical, and philosophical societies, but these early attempts at institutional herbaria failed. The private herbaria of the pioneer collectors were either donated to larger institutions outside the state, left to an institution within the state that remained small or later disappeared, retained by family members, or destroyed by fire or lost. The development of private and institutional herbaria in the state was extremely quiescent from 1850 until the 1890s, after which Professor William A. Kellerman founded the State Herbarium at The Ohio State University. From specimens contributed largely by volunteers, the herbarium expanded under Professor John H. Schaffner. OHIO J. SCI. 84 (4): 148-174, 1984 INTRODUCTION physicians, businessmen, educators, an The herbarium, an institution which amateurs of varied interests. These privai houses and maintains dried plant speci- herbaria were the first sources for doci mens, documents the flora of a particular menting the checklists and catalogues < region at any given time and place and plants, or floras, that were being writte serves as a source of primary data for stud- at the local and/or state level. A stat< ies related to morphologic, systematic, supported herbarium was not establishe geographic, and evolutionary botany. until approximately 70 years after Ohi Collecting and preserving plants to make was admitted to the Union in 1803- Tr herbaria began in Ohio in the late 1700s nucleus of this herbarium was organize as personal avocational efforts, first by within the newly-created Ohio Agricu traveling naturalists, then by resident tural and Mechanical College, now Tr Ohio State University, Columbus, founde in 1870. Shortly after his arrival in 189- 'Revised and updated from a presentation at a William Ashbrook Kellerman, the fir: symposium, "The Herbarium Resources of Ohio: Professor of Botany, designated a Stai Present Status and Future Directions," organized for Herbarium that has since served as the m; the Meetings of The Ohio Academy of Science, Col- umbus, Ohio, 24 April 1982. Manuscript received jor source of documentation for the flora < 26 April 1984 and in revised form 14 July 1984 Ohio. The survival of the State Herbariui (#84-19). is provided for bv law. Statute 3335.1 OhioJ. Sci. DEVELOPMENT OF HERBARIA IN OHIO 149 of the Ohio Revised Code states that to make the purchase. He met with the "The board of trustees of the Ohio state directors of the Company at Marietta from university shall secure and keep in the uni- 19 August to 15 October 1788, and al- versity a collection of specimens in ... though not the most favorable season for botany, and other specimens pertaining to botanical investigation, Cutler examined natural history and the sciences. Such and collected plants that were new to him. specimens shall be properly classified and These specimens are thought to be the first kept for the benefit of the university." obtained in Ohio and are believed to be The primary objectives of this paper are part of his personal herbarium which was to trace the early development of herbaria later destroyed by fire (Cutler 1895). in Ohio, prior to the establishment of the Andre Michaux (1746-1802), a French State Herbarium, and to provide a brief botanist, was commissioned in 1785 by the history of the State Herbarium during its French government to study the trees of first 50 years. This account then is essen- North America toward determining their tially a history of botanical exploration by suitability for the construction of naval those individuals who prepared herbaria vessels, and to obtain young plants and and who wrote local catalogues or floras seeds for restoration of the severely de- during the 19th and the first half of the pleted forests of France (Chinard 1957, 20th centuries in Ohio. Deleuze 1804, MacPhail 1981, Michaux 1889, Savage 1970). During the next ROLE OF EXPLORER NATURALISTS 10 years, Michaux established nursery gar- BEFORE 1820 dens at Bergen, New Jersey, and near The earliest collections of vascular Charleston, South Carolina, and explored plants from Ohio were made by explorer the eastern part of the country for plants. naturalists, prominent among them being In August 1793, he traveled by flatboat Manasseh Cutler, Andre Michaux, Francois down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Andre Michaux, and Thomas Nuttall. Limestone, now Maysville, Kentucky, and While in Ohio, these naturalists collected from there his travels in the Ohio Valley only a few plants, and at best, their speci- extended into central Kentucky, southern mens were generally small fragments. Indiana, and southern Illinois, as far west Many of their specimens were lost; those as St. Louis. While along the Ohio River that survive are in herbaria outside of he noted in his journal many of the woody Ohio. Most of these document, as type and herbaceous plants he had seen and specimens, species originally described collected. At least 16 of his collections from Ohio. from the Ohio Valley formed the bases for The Reverend Manasseh Cutler (1742- new species described in his Flora Boreali- 1823), a graduate of Yale College, was Americana (1803), the first attempt at a pastor of the church at Ipswich, Massachu- comprehensive flora of eastern North setts, where he resided his entire life America. His specimens from the Ohio (Cutler and Cutler 1888, Lloyd 1903). Valley are now part of the herbarium at the With strong scientific inclinations, he be- Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in came proficient in astronomy, meteorology, Paris (Uttall 1984). and botany. He collected and observed Frangois Andre Michaux (1770-1855), plants locally and was the first to write for accompanied his father to the United New England An Account of Some of the States in 1785, traveled on several of his Vegetable Productions, Naturally Growing in expeditions, and assisted in the care of this Part of America, Botanically Arranged transplants in the nursery gardens (Chi- (1785). In 1787, the Ohio Company was nard 1957, Durand 1857, MacPhail 1981, organized to purchase land for a Western Savage 1970, Schramm 1957, True 1937). Colony, and Cutler was hired as the Com- In 1790, young Michaux returned to pany's agent to the United States Congress France for a formal education, which in- 150 R. L. STUCKEY Vol. 84 eluded the study of botany at the Museum of his new species from the Ohio River in Paris. He returned to the United States Valley, and at least four additional Ohio in 1801 to report on the condition of the specimens, survive in the herbarium of the nursery gardens and to make a more de- Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- tailed study of the trees of North America phia, where Nuttall deposited collections for his government. With an eye toward made before 1818 (Stuckey 1966b). those woody species that might enrich the Examination of Nuttall's specimens re- forests of France, Michaux explored the veals the general level of quality of the eastern and midwestern portions of the collections prepared by itinerant natural- country, and traveling by canoe, followed ists of this period. The specimens were his father's route down the Ohio River usually small plant fragments, and by to- in July 1802. He wrote of his travels in day's standards the data on the labels were the Voyage a I'Ouest des Monts Alleghanys extremely cryptic, consisting only of (1804). His major botanical contribution the scientific name of the plant and per- was the Histoire des Arbres Fores tiers de haps a locality, such as "Ohio River" or I'Am'erique Septentrionale (1810-1813), "Marietta." The name of the collector was reissued in a three-volume translation as not usually included, or if it was, it might The North American Sylva (1817-1819). The be indicated by the first letter of the col- younger Michaux's collections are also lector's name, e.g. "P" for Pursh. Later preserved in the herbarium of the Museum curators often added the collector's name, National d'Histoire Naturelle. e.g. "Nutt." for Nuttall. The year of col- Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859), a self- lection was seldom written on the labels, educated English naturalist, came at age although sometimes the month was given. 22 to Philadelphia and was employed by If a specimen was given to another indi- Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), Pro- vidual, the recipient usually recorded the fessor of Materia Medica, Natural History, name of the donor on the label.