Table Of Content/
WHO
CONQUERED THE
Ewan}
Joseph
NEW
WORLD? OR FOUR
CENTURIES OF
AN
EXPLORATION
IN
INDEHISCENT CAPSULE
Abstract
We
track botanical conquest from Oviedo (who met Columbus in 1490 and visited Santa Marta, present Colombia,
We
in 1515) to the corporate botanical garden at the close of the 19th century. also recognize the foreign correspondent
of the 16th century; the solitary missionary-naturalist of the 17th century; the apologist of systems (who advocates
member
schemes of classification) in the 18th century; and the naturalist-collector, then often a of a government-
sponsored expedition in the 19th century.
We
making taxonomy and grown
History? are history. Plant "great pine cone; the plant in large
is
not a purely descriptive science, history, fields [in Veragua, Panama] from shoots that grow
is it is
same
deviously directed toward a conclusion. History out of the pifia [and] plants last for three or
"^
rests on archives of two sorts: books published from four years, always producing fruit. (See Fig. 1.)
mummies
archives, and plant ticketed or labeled Pineapple was transplanted by Guaranies of south
—
Ananas
and entombed in herbaria. The conquest of the Brazil and Paraguay the word a Tupi-
is
—
New World by the explorers who observed and Guarani name via other Amerindians probably
reported begins with Columbus who met Oviedo down the Orinoco avenue of penetration to the
We
two years before Columbus set headline Caribbean. The Portuguese had dehvered as far
sail. it
the sixteenth century for commentators on the as Goa on the Indian Ocean during the sixteenth
its
plants observed; the seventeenth century by the century. But pineapple was not the staple food that
who now
missionaries collected seeds and, and then, maize was, ''the most important of foods for
all
men By
specimens; the eighteenth century by apologists of and their livestock.''^ the late sixteenth
were
systems, collecting exhibits to support their schemes; century the peoples of central Africa raising
the nineteenth century by the collector-ex- maize, manioc, peanuts, and squashes, Ameri-
field all
who we know who
plorer not cabinets of but can domesticates, but do not exactly
curiosities,
filled,
museums who
which by the twentieth century would those phyto-conquestadors were, delivered the
how
So
overflow. foodstuffs, or early they arrived. dispro-
movement
omnia was
Floras, faunas, history, everything flows, portionate the west-to-east that
When New
Jieurit. did the sea bean, Entada gigcts^ Vavilov listed 640 World plant domesticates
first
take the Gulf Stream across the Atlantic? The soft but only 50 of African origins.^
wood Weeds from warmer had
pithlike of cuipo or quipo {Cavanillesia pla- tropical or climates
tanifolia)^ a relative of celba^ for centuries had arrived in the Mediterranean from even before the
Marco World
been washed on the Azores by tempests. Indeed, days of Polo, and these Old emigrants
1494
these waifs were gathering evidence for what in arrived in Hispaniola in on the 17 ships of
remember
Columbus's day was looked upon as shoreless Columbus's second voyage. (Do you the
still
When
he was coasting among the Bahamas Santa Maria, PintUy and Nina from your school-
seas.^
The Nina
on the of his four voyages, Columbus wrote: book history days? returned to Hispan-
first
many many On men wom-
and 1494.) board were 1,200 (no
believe there are plants trees iola in
**I
which are worth a lot in Spain for dyes, and for en) taken abroad to build the settlement near
weed when
medicines and spicery; but do not recognize them, Isabela.^ Imagine the seeds that arrived
I
me
which gives great Pineapple as a do- rootcrowns of the grape vines and sugar cane from
grief.''^
mesticate from the Mosquito Coast was described, Spain and her possessions were planted.
for example, by Columbus's son Ferdinand as a Bixa, the body paint of jungle Indians, in mod-
Missouri Botanical Garden, P.O. Box 299, Louis, Missouri 63166, U.S.A.
St.
'
Ann. Missouri Bot. Card. 78: 57-64. 1991
58 Annals of the
Garden
Missouri Botanical
jos to find this ^^Canella alba'* or "Ispingo.''''
when
Gonzalo Pizarro chronicled that they were
Cayambe^
**on the skirts of a volcano," evidently
day two
did not cease to rain for a single for
it
He
months. said the Spanish "received great in-
much became
and
jury, of their clothing rotten."
In the vicinity of Suniaco the Indians went naked,
Pizarro concluding, ''they go naked because the
much
country so hot, and rains so that clothes
is it
No
become specimens from Spanish
rotten."'^ this
Pizarro period was probably Joseph de
exist.
It
who 1747
Jussieu in collected a sterile spec-
first
imen Lamarck Lauras quixos and
that labeled
Here
preserved in the Paris herbarium.'^" at the
Henk
Missouri Botanical Garden, van de Werff
is
complex
piecing together history four centuries
this
after Pizarro.
Although Santa Catalina Island was discovered
1542
off the southern California coast in October
San
by Cabrillo, there was no botanist aboard the
La
Salvador and was
or consort. Victoria,
its it
300 Gambel
years before William botanized on the
island in 1847.'^ The University of Padua, not Ca-
Spain, opened the botanic garden In
brillo's first
The
Europe nearly a half century after Columbus.'*
next botanic gardens, Leyden (1590) and Mon-
tepellier (1592), featured materia medica exhibits
FlGURE Pineapple grown and 1697
1. illustrated in
economy
at the botanic garden in Amsterdam. This drawing served or plants involved in the of the nation.
as a basionym in the description of the pineapple by American plants were grown at Oxford, which
Linnaeus in the Species Plantarum in 1753.
opened garden 1621, 1635, and
Paris
in in
its
The
Uppsala in 1655, great surge of living collec-
Kew
1759
advanced and her 13
tions with in
ern times has been sublimated into coloring for satellite gardens throughout the far-flung British
cheese and margarine. In 1526 Oviedo said the Empire. In due course there was a particular one
—
make
Caribs "paint their bodies [and] themselves outside the British crown Shaw's Garden, created
hideous [with] various figures on their faces and in the image of Kew.
other parts of the body [thinking] they look good The growth of botany, systematic botany par-
in
in and besides they like the appearance of the ticular, depends on the comparative forms of flow-
it,
paint.** Gaspard Bauhin cited Oviedo, and from the ers afforded in a botanic garden. Just as vegetation
dehiscent capsule of annatio placed in the ge- types are mapped by so-called indicator species,
it
When
named
neric group, Castanea."* Linnaeus botanic gardens stake the growth of horticulture
Bixa commemorated
orellana he Francisco Orella- and advance taxonomy. Notable are the Chinese
na, taking his flag from Plukenet who had pictured studies nurtured by Arnold Arboretum's Chinese
Bixa by other name achiote. "^ Alexander Smith, plantings.
its
We
Museum
employed Economic Kew, Mexico and Lima opened
in the at con- recall that City
New
Treasury Botany and 1553 and 1555, and
trlbuted to the of of Lindley universities in that the
Moore. Smith wrote that Bixa paint [was] almost World's herbal, though not published for four
first
their only article of clothing." Perhaps Bixa gave centuries, dates from 1552. the Badianus
It is
"Red Man/' mod-
the designation MartU5cr/p^''^ This Aztec herbal records such
Tidings were circulated in Pizarro's time that a ern concepts as the relation of hummingbirds to
cinnamon grew on
sort of the east slope of the the tubular scarlet flowers for example, Loese/ia
of,
northern Andes. "The Land of Cinnamon" was coccinea (Polemoniaceae). There are puzzles: the
placed as east of Quito, and Orellana was aroid huacalxochitel, meaning "basket flower,"
dis-
Tom
accompany
patched to Francisco Pizarro's brother was illustrated for value in curing angina.
its
me
Gonzalo on an expedition to a province called Qui- Croat "presumably a fanciful rendition
tells it is
Volume Number Ewan
59
78,
1
Who New
1991 Conquered World?
the
some The
of Philodendron,^'' tendrils in the draw-
ing are unnatural; a few aroids do have lobed
leaves, but none has blades close to those pictured.
Many
narrow-endemic philodendrons occur
in
Mexico, and so, in twentieth century thinking,
Among
an
''perhaps represents extinct species."
it
Badianus Manu-
other engaging illustrations in the
script are the very earliest illustrations of American
cacti, a cereoid and an opuntia.'^ Remarkably this
552 herbal notes on Old World immigrants:
offers
1
Rumex, OxallSy and Cynara cardunculus. Early
New
World Parthenium
records of hysterophorus^
mombin
and such {Spondias purpurea
fruits as
Mexican
L.) are in this herbal.
The Franciscan Andre Thevet was on
the
friar
coast of Brazil in November 1555.'^ Later he sailed
along the Florida coast and reached the Gulf of
St.
Lawrence. Thevet's Canadian journal was cited by
Linnaeus Bibliotheca botanica where
in his (1747),
was the first of what Linnaeus listed as '*'*per-
it
egrinationes Americaniy Thevet antedated Jacob
78
Cornut's Canadian account by years, but Cornut
30 The
offered about plant descriptions. indehis-
cent capsules of the attractive genus Thevetla bring
Panama
him
to mind. (The Flora of describes these
A
distinctive fruits as "drupes.")'^ century before ri -m
Linnaeus^^ **Ahovay'' was included by Gaspard Figure 2. Pepper Tree of Chile illustrated by Feuillee
Bauhin Pinax under *'Pomiferae Arbores" in 1714, introduced into California during the Mission
in his
Period.
and Under
together with genipat durion. a six-word
polynomial Bauhin cited Jean de Lery, Protestant
who
pastor visited Brazil the year after Thevet, Before we leave the foreign correspondents of
and who noted the fruit of Ahovay (Thevetia) as the sixteenth century, a word about Old World
a crepitaculum, Latin for rattle. Domestic uses of preconceptions that have us with some every-
left
plants are the chronicled by the sixteenth day misnomers. For centuries maize was known as
first
century herbalists Clusius and L'Obel. The Tupi- Turkey wheat, the American bison called
is still
nambas of Brazil wore Thevetia "shells" as anklets buffalo, and the (spotted) jaguar, the Tupi Guarani
When
in their dances. the barber-surgeon John name, has prestigious advertising value, neverthe-
Gerard produced his Herball or Generall Historic less, the Old World association, el tigre, the
is
When
name
of Plantes for British readers, the year Shakes- popular Latin American today. the
"Henry IV" was on Gerard American agave was named became "Amer-
peare's the the stage, the
it
flgured a woodcut of Thevetia, the "Indian Morrice ican aloe." David Quinn called these "products of
an Morocco dance "^^ The Greek word
bells," in allusion to the exotic wishful thinking. for a spiny
He much
theme. said their "rattling sound doth plant kaktos^ appropriated for the cactus. John
is
9^
delight" the Indians. 20 Lindley knew our avocado as Alligator pear, "pear
Only one of the several herbalists of the sixteenth going back to Oviedo from shape. 24
its
Who
American was were
century included discoveries, so slow the solitary missionary-naturalists of
the spread of plant lore. Brunfels included no Amer- the seventeenth century? First let us mention John
ican headlines, not even holy wood, Guaiacum Banister of the York River region of Virginia. 25
Had Reverend beyond 38
or sanctum^ the prized antisphyilitic, the Banister lived his
officinale
which by 1530 was selling briskly. Fuchs alone of years. North American natural history would have
New
World
the herbalists illustrated two squashes taken a very different course indeed. Banister took
and maize. ^' By 1583 Clusius of Antwerp, who his M.A. degree at Oxford in 1674 and became
He
profited from his residence in a port city on the clerk and chaplain at Magdalene College, stud-
North Sea, mentioned the "White beans of Gua- ied and collected especially the surviving plants
temala" and "dama de noche."^^ brought back from the York River area that had
60
Annals
of the
Missouri Botanical Garden
earlier been noticed by John Tradescant between England, John Harrison, invented the chro-
in
first
1632 and 1654. From 1678 to 1692, when Ban- nometer to enable ships to determine longitude at
ister was accidentally shot while collecting on the sea. The use of the chronometer was opposed by
Roanoke
River, two-thirds to three-quarters of the the astronomer royal, Nevil Maskelyne, and so
it
plants described by Banister from Virginia were was not used on the Endeavour by Captain Cook,
new. Leonard Plukenet had 89 of Banister's draw- It became crucial in later voyages. '** The chronom-
ings finely engraved and reproduced in his Phy- eter and the sextant enabled expeditions to reach
tographia, with the Latin descriptions. However, and to map charted shores accurately. The harvest
he
failed to credit Banister with 11 of these, mostly of those expeditions would be sorted by the
still
those received in England after Banister's death. numbers of their stamens and into new gen-
pistils
Plukenet's Banister records were an important con- era and species according to Linnaean classes.
tribution to the writings of Linnaeus 50 years later. The description and classification of new plants
When
New
Linnaeus quoted Gronovius works World wake
or the of in the followed in the of such
Ray, Morison, Plukenet, Petiver, and Dillenius for applied botanical activities as the culturing of silk-
records of Virginia plants, he was quoting Banister worms on leaves of mulberry The founding
trees.
and was basing his newly described species on one of the Colony of Georgia said to have rested on
is
of Banister's drawings or descriptions, ahhough three needs; an asylum for debtors and persecuted
Linnaeus The monk
rarely attributed these him. garden growing
to Protestants; a for the of
trial silk,
(1660-1732)
Louis Feuillee explored Martinique, wine grapes, and drug plants; and a relief of pop-
Caracas, and elsewhere before visiting the coasts ulation pressures in the Old World. ^" Old Ebenezer,
of Chile and Peru between 1707 and 1712, ob- a sterile and unattractive spot about 21 miles from
serving especially the ports of Concepcion, Tal- Savannah and about four miles below the present
cahuano, Coquimbo, and Callao. Linnaeus cited town of Springfield, Effingham County, was settled
plants from the illustrated journal of Feuillee, but in the spring of 1734 by 78 Salzbergers. George
no specimens are known. The pepper tree, so well Genzmer described them as ''simple folk, pious,
known
southern was from
in California, cited Feuil- industrious, uneducated, impoverished by confis-
lee as Schinus molle where the trivial epithet is cation and exile, and bewildered by their situation
without meaning, a mistake for malli, the native on the Georgia frontier." Baron von Reck and
name
vernacular (See Reverend Johann
in Chile.-'' Fig. 2.) Bolzius led a ''tour of observation
The (1646-
Catholic missionary Charles Plumier into the adjoining country [to Savannah] sponsored
1704) visited Martinique and Haiti in 1689 with by Governor Oglethorpe.^' Old Ebenezer had proved
—
Joseph Donat 1736 moved
Surian, physician-pharmacist.^' Sur-
unsatisfactory in the settlers to a
ian returned to France the next year with a plant high ridge and founded New Ebenezer. Central
to
my
collection, which preserved in ten books in the mentioning Ebenezer the appearance 1756
is in
is
museum
natural history in Paris. Instead of col- of an almost entirely overlooked botanical paper
made
lecting plants Plumier about 6,000 line draw- published Ilamburgisches Magazin enumer-
in
ings and prepared early descriptions of the plants ating 87 plants, mostly economic or potentially
observed. These were the bases of four botanical useful species: the report of the Reverend Bolzius. 32
works published between 1693 and 1760. They Dr. William Houstoun botanized the West
in
Burman who
were completed by Johannes wrote Indies, Vera Cruz, and the Spanish Main on behalf
the later descriptions. of Sir Hans Sloane and the Chelsea Physick Gar-
The eighteenth century may be marked by the den.^^ His premature death in Jamaica, August 14,
advocates or apologists for the two historic systems 1733, brought an end to the plan of Oglethorpe
of plant classification launched in that century. The and the South Sea Company, by whom Houstoun
Sexual System espoused by Linnaeus, and its im- was retained as a physician, for shipping plants
pact, has been skillfully told by Frans Stafleu in and seeds from tropical America to West Indii
and
his Linnaeus the Llnnaeans {\91 \\ with some ports, to Charleston, and to the "Colony of Georgia
references to the succeeding scheme, the emerging in America/' Some West Indian plants reached
my
Natural System of Jussieu. I summarized in the Savannah plantations from Houstoun's trav-
"PlantCoUectorsin America: Backgrounds many
for Lin- His energies other regions and the
els,^* in
naeus" 1970,'" we new made known
in but await a capsulated review species he discovered and by
American
of the collectors and sources that con- Philip Miller indicate that the history of Georgia
tributed to Jussieu's natural arrangement. botany would have been very had he
different lived.
Linnaeus known Systema Naturae Men
well for his of the nineteenth century at watersheds
is
published in 1735. The same year a clockmaker around the world who directed the flow of knowl-
—
Volume Number Ewan
78, 61
1
Who
New
1991 Conquered World?
the
edge from explorations included Barton, Humboldt, dertaken for scientific purposes in the [nineteenth]
many
the Hookers, the de Candolles, Martins, Engler, century." As as 6,500 plant specimens, as
Torrey, and Gray. Humboldt's enquiry into many well as living plants and seeds were sent to Munich,
fields is "unlikely ever to be surpassed, for thor- Zoological collections included 85 mammals, 350
oughness, perseverance, curiosity, courage, and birds, 116 fishes, and 2,700 insects. Seeded by
sheer force of intellect/'^^ Humboldt's was the the plant collections was the epic Flora Bras-
last
moment when
in history an individual could master iliensis. Martius, then of age 46, prompted by the
all branches of science. WiUiam Jackson Hooker, ill-fated EndUcher, in 1840 launched the first of
as did S. F. Baird in this country, implemented the 130 fascicles, which in 20,733 pages made 15
own
46
field naturalists, often out of their pockets, to volumes. Martius completed fascicles by
his
Kew W.
assemble at the records of global exploration. death in 1868. A. Eichler and Ignatz Urban
Witness, for example, that George Gardner, M.D., continued to edit the Flora to completion in
its
aided by Hooker, from 1836 to 1841 wrote 36 1906. Sixty five botanists of nine European nations
letters, some 18 and 24 pages long. Gardner's contributed their accounts to Flora Brasiliensis.'^ I
comments may
in his Brazilian Travels (1846) are often surprise us read Asa Gray's
It to letter to
to the point: the Rio botanic garden, Gardner wrote, George Engelmann 1863 that "Martius not
in
is
"^^
promenade
is ''more a than a Botanic Garden. a very remarkable botanist, but good." Gray then
Kew
who
Joseph Dalton Hooker, cultivated after added Martius a genial, philosophical soul
''is (full
saw
his father's seeding, the international values of Plato, etc.), a good explorer, has worked up the
man
of colonial floras, still of first-line usefulness, for Palms, etc., and a wonderful for the amount
is
West
the Indies, Hongkong, British India, and so he knows on a vast number of different subjects
The Pyramus
forth. elder de Candolle, Augustus philology, antiquities, philosophy, id genus
et
de Candolle, first used "endemique" in 1820.^^ His omne. ^^ Gray had first met Martius on his Eu-
—
Prodromus, published from 1823 to 1873, with ropean tour in 1839 Gray was 28, Martius, 45,
4(
his son, Alphonse, involved British and continental a small man, not so as I" says Gray,
''quite
tall
authors. "Prodromus literally means the northeast thin, but very good looking. ''^^ They met at the
wind which blows for eight days before the rising Royal Cabinet in Munich, once a Jesuit College,
of the dogstar," wrote Willis Linn Jepson. "The then containing the immense which
library, ac-
work was intended as a forerunner of that natural cording to Gray was one of the two largest in the
system which would sometime appear though
in effulgent world, the collections except for the Bra-
The Prodromus
glory. blew for fifty years but zilian plants ''make no great show after that of
. . .
the dogstar has not yet risen.''*** Vienna." After his visit to the botanic garden. Gray
GeopoHtics dictates exploration. Banks and So- dined at the "house of Martius," met his "very
lander were not welcomed when they visited Rio intelligent and pleasant" wife, and their four
chil-
de Janeiro in 1769, and later Humboldt was for- dren. The party then retired to the royal chapel,
bidden to enter Brazil, then in tight control of listened to the chapel musician on the piano
''play
Portugal. But Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1807 to perfection," then, says Gray, to crown Mar-
all.
independence movements The my
set off in America. tins seized his fiddle, quite to surprise, and
Many
tables turned in Portugal. left Lisbon for an played with great spirit." 44
emergent Brazil. The capital was moved from Bahia For the Brazil of Spix and Martius that never
will
to Rio de Janeiro in 1808; Brazil was opened to return, listen to their "first night in the open air ^*
English commerce, and the botanic garden was not from
far Rio:
founded in that same year. For the succeeding
At Retiro, a miserable fazenda, lying sideways from
decades parade
a veritable of field-collecting ex-
swampy
Marcos, narrow surrounded
S. in a valley,
plorers from Europe went Included were
to Brazil. by woody we
mountains, passed
the night the
first in
Langsdorff, Sellow, Saint-Hilaire, Pohl, Claussen, open The uraponga had ceased strangely
air. his
d'Urville, Mawe, Bowie, Burchell, Cunningham, sounding notes, the swarms of grasshoppers com-
menced, monotonous
many as night set in, their chirp, at
and more, a parade unmatched perhaps
in
intervals interrupted by the notes of a large frog,
The
the annals of botanical exploration.^^ sixth
resembling a drum, the lament of the capueira, and
German
naturalist in the decade was Karl Friedrich
the dull cry of the goatsucker. Affected by the con-
Philip von Martius, born in Erlangen, northern stantly returning impressions, we felt ourselves In a
mood
strange and solemn
Bavaria. Martius was joined by the zoologist Johann in the lonely wilderness,
which was when
further increased the filament, with
Baptist von Spix.*" They traveled 1,400 miles from
all the splendour of the southern constellations,
1817
1820, on an
until expedition "that certainly
beamed on the dark forest, and millions of shining
among
ranks the most important enterprises un- beetles fluttered in luminous circles through the
62 Annals of the
Garden
Missouri Botanical
many
hedges, at length a heavy rain veiled all in dark- the work of botanists including one, Rafin-
till
ness. esque, with whom he disagreed; he wrote an ex-
we
The next mountains over which passed are
many
emplary and he prepared
pioneer
state flora;
and The road sometimes
lower, rise at intervals.
is
new government-
descriptions of species for the
cut very deep in the soil, which consists of red clay,
very narrow, and when two troops of mules meet, sponsored Mexican Boundary Survey and the Pa-
is
as often happens, dangerous. This kind of road Railway Reports. Torrey was 55 when they
It cific
however, welcome luxurious because
in forests,
is,
were begun. *^
confining travellers to one narrow path, prevents
all
man
Asa Gray was a of sound scholarship, broad
from being quickly overgrown, as would otherwise
it
was
culture, and of compelling personality, yet he
happen.*^
Wood,
preeminence. Alphonso with
jealous of his
No
single botanist in this country accomplished neither the talents nor the advantages of Gray,
so much in the Nineteenth Century to create the competed successfully in the textbook field.''* The
image of American botany as did Asa Gray. John edition of Wood's C/a55 fiooA:o/fio/afij( 1845)
first
Torrey, botanist, chemist, and mineralogist, dif- promptly sold out, the second edition and subse-
fered from Gray, though they had characteristics quent printings from stereotyped plates held their
in common. Both had a deeply religious turn of popularity. All the while the author was traveling
mind, although have always suspected that Asa and learning new He made a major revision
floras.
I
Gray attended Church as a proper Bostonlan, in 1861, and others followed throughout his life-
whereas Torrey, a more retiring Christian, seldom time. Altogether between 800,000 and one million
mentioned his religious associations. Both took copies of Wood's botanies were sold. Henry Nich-
medical degrees, and both preferred the magnifying olas Bolander, author of a catalogue of limited
lens to the stethoscope. 46 popularity on the plants of San Francisco area
JohnTorrey wrote Professor A. P. deCandolle (1870), wrote enviously to Asa Gray in 1866,
to
"What Wood?"^^
Geneva on January 1837, 'Whenever can be done with Professor
to
at 6,
I is
my
time continue work on Florae Amer- Columbus Ohio bryologist Leo Lesquereux wrote
find to
I
icae Septentrionalis on which have been engaged to Professor Bolander in 1864 about an endemic
I
We
now much '*We were concerned
for several years past. are doing in feature of California: greatly
N. America to perfect the Flora of our country." about your shocks of earthquake and happy to
At this time he was expecting Gray to join the know that you had escaped a living burial or some-
who
Wilkes Exploring Expedition. **Dr. Gray has thing of that sorte."^'
Who
my New World?
worked by side for nearly three years past, conquered the For the nat-
is
He
was no
to be the botanist. well qualified for the uralist there real conquest, only a quest,
is
situation. The United States can well afford to And the search continues. In 1841 George Ben-
. . .
send out expedition as we have 50 millions of tham named the genus of plants Heliamphora
this
our treasury and have paid our debts. based on Schomburgk's collection from Rorai
dollars in all
known
hope we shall yet have a national botanic gar- Today nine heHamphoras are from the Gua-
I
The
den, .*^ Gray, however, declined, and together yana Shield." pigeonholes of this garden's
. .
they proceeded with the Flora. herbarium hold verified undescribed taxa.
What
The Flora of North America was planned, fos- of those ''indehiscent capsules''? taught
I
monument, taxonomy
tered, and stands today as Torrey's plant at Tulane, disseminating the def-
which Gray helped to raise. Gray worked hand in inition that a capsule was dehiscent except when
glove with Torrey, as Bentham and Hooker worked was indehiscent, for example, in the Brazil nut.
it
Europe 1838 The American Herbert Huntnigton Smith
across the Atlantic. Gray's trip to in naturalist
was the trip of an American botanist to visit wrote of the ''nut-capsules five inches in di-
first
. . .
museums
European expressly study type spec- ameter and weighing two or three pounds;
to falling
come
imens essential to the writing of a flora. a hundred feet or more, they crashing through
many
By 1867 Asa Gray had branches cannon and bury themselves
loyal followers the like balls,
You
with an almost idolatrous devotion. Frequent ref- often six inches deep in the ground. can imag-
erences in letters between botanists to ''the Good ine,'' said Herbert Smith, "that a man's skull would
Doctor Gray*' attest to the fraternity of spirit. Gray be small proof against such a missile. "^^ He had
had created a garden, a garden of living and dried gone to Brazil at age 19 with his Cornell professor,
plants, and by this time a garden of memories. C. F. Hartt, in 1870 and later collected off and
It
ay fairly be said that he had even built an empire. on until 1902 in South America, Mexico, and the
To summarize Torrey's influence: he contributed West Indies. In 1910 Smith became curator of
Museum
to a sound taxonomy of the Cyperaceae; he fostered the Alabama of Natural History. Deafness
Volume Number Ewan
78, 63
1
Who
New
1991 Conquered World?
the
overtook him in time, and as he was walking on americana L.; yellow, from bark of Bixa. See Hand-
book South American
March 1919 of Indians, Julian H. Steward,
22, along a railroad track he failed
Amer.
editor,' (Bur. Ethnol. Bull. 143, 1948). 7
To
to hear an approaching locomotive. get back
"^^
umes.
vol
one
to of those indehiscent capsules, the poet Ca-
9. Diagnostic phrase-names of Bauhin: Arbor Mexi-
BC
tullus in the first century wrote about what he ocana fructu castaneae coccifera. Pinax (1671),
419.
called a chest"; he called a capsula with
''little it
10. Leonard Plukenet, Almagestum botanicum (London,
no mention of indehiscence. John Lindley, master
1696), 272. pL 209,
4.
fig.
lexicographer, stressed the splitting in 1830, just
Thomas
11. A(lexander) S(mith) in John Lindley and
Leeuweuhoek 1693
as in wrote of the ''capsula
Moore, Treasury Botany^
of revised edition (London,
breaking upon the ripening of the seed."'*^ Longmans, Green, 1889), 148.
Who knows who conquered America? Can J2. Clements R. Markham, Expeditions into the Valley
really
Amazons^ 1639
of the 1539, 1540, (London, Hak-
we
encapsulate the story indehiscently? Definitions
Soc, 6-7.
luyt 1859),
Omnia The drawn
flow. pictures of Barro
fleurit.
12a. For Joseph de Jussieu in Ecuador see Arthur B.
do Rio Negro by Wallace and Spruce
are different Steele, Flowers for the King (Durham, North Car-
from the Manaus saw 1985. How long the olina, Duke Univ., 1964), 20-22; Frans Stafleu,
in will
I
and
Linnaeus Linnaeans
New the (Utrecht Intern. Assoc.
World remain "new"? Capsules generally
278-279.
Plant Taxonomists, 1971), For Jussleu's
crack open, but what about the lecyths? They
rot.
association with Lamarck see Ludwig Diels, "Bei-
Time short and the water Unfortunately
is rises. trage zur Kenntnis der Vegetation und Flora von
one lifetime seems hardly enough to allow a scholar Ecuador," Bibliotheca Botanica 116, (Stuttgart,
1937), 48.
mastery of every aspect of huge subjects
full like
Ewan, Ewan,
13. **Early History** in editor, Short
J. J.
Dutch
these. Peter Gayl, historian said: "History
History of Botany in the United States (New York,
who
an endless debate and he delights debates
is in
Hafner, 1969), 28. Nuttall commemorated Gambel
with historians enjoys the spice of historical writ- in 1848 as Gambelia speciosa from his Santa Cat-
=
may made now
ing." But, as Samuel Johnson "I alina collection in February, 1847, but
said, freely,
Galvezia speciosa (Nutt.) A. Gray. Witmer Stone,
without shame, leave some obscurities happier
to
"Philadelphia to the coast in early days, and the
industry, or future information,"
1850''
development of western ornithology
prior to
Condor 18 3-14. 11-12.
(1916): T. Palmer,
pp. S.
"Notes on persons whose names appear
the no-
in
Notes
menclature of California birds" Condor 30 (1928):
2. Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: 261-307, 278. Howard Campbell, "William Gam-
p.
New
a Life ofChristopher Columbus (Boston, Little Brown, bel, Naturalist" Mexico Wildlife 26(6) (Nov.-
1942) 2 volumes. 60. One volume edition (1942) Dec. 1978): 2-9, mentions Gambel's passing through
1:
lacks the chapter notes. St. Louis in April-May 1841, enroute to Indepen-
3 Ibid. 325. dence, Missouri, but his diary any)
1: (if is lost.
4. Quoted in Carl O. Sauer, Early Spanish Main 14. Ewan, "Notable living collections and botanic gar-
J.
(Berkeley, Univ. California, 1966), 133. Morison, dens*^ in Ian MacPhail, Hortus Botanicus, the Bo-
is*'
map Ewan, Garden and Book Morton
2: 70, see with dates following 68. tanic the (Lisle, Illinois,
p. J.
118—119.
"The Columbian discoveries and the growth of bo- Arboretum, 1972),
W.
tanical ideas with special reference to the Sixteenth 15. Emily Emmart, Badianus Manuscript (Balti-
Century" in First Images of America. The Impact more, Johns Hopkins Univ., 1940). Martin de la
New
ofthe World on the Old, Fredi Chiappelli, editor Cruz, author of the Aztec text, latinized by Juannes
DC,
807-812. Datura
(Berkeley, Univ. California, 1976), Ref- Badianus. PI. 20, 224, meteloides
p. is
erences on pineapple, 812, note 1 4. Recent ac- not D. arborea L. PL 30, p. 234, Philodendron is
counts: Francisco Oliva-Esteva and Julian A. Stey- perhaps P. pseudoradianatum Matuda but "not very
Xanthosoma Thomas
ermark, Bromeliaceaes of Venezuela, Native and close," not fide Croat (pers.
Cultivated (Caracas, Armitano, 1987), 100-101; comm.).
Freddy Leal, "On the history, origin and taxonomy 16. John M. Fogg, "Two early cactus pictures," Cac-
Jr.,
of the pineapple," Interciencia 14 (1989), 235- tus and Succulent Jour. 52 (1980): 267.
241. 17. Andre Thevet, Les Singularitez de la France ant-
W.
5. Alfred Crosby, Columbian Exchange. Bio- arctique (Paris, 1558), Paul Gaffarel, annotated edi-
Jr.,
logical and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (West- tion, 1878. P. Fournier, "au Bresil. Andre Thevet,
port, Connecticut, Greenwood, 1972), 171, 192. cordelier," Les Voyageurs naturalistes du clerge
6. Ibid., 1985. franqais avant la Revolution (Paris, Lechevalier,
102- 11-21.
Morison, 116. 1932),
7. 2:
8. Sterling A. Stoudemire, editor, Oviedo's Natural 18. Annals Missouri Bot. Garden 57 (1970): 92.
New
History ofthe West Indies, 1526 (Chapel Univ. 19. The widely cultivated, World, narrow-leaved.
Hill,
North Carolina Studies Romance Languages and showy-flowered Thevetia peruviana (Pers.) K. Schum.
Lit-
eratures, 1959), 33. Amerindians used three body was one of three components of Cerbera in Linnaeus,
PL 208-209. The New World
paints: red, from bija or urucu or achiote with vari- Sp. (1753), second
T
now
ant spellings, the of Bixa; bluish black, from ovate-leaved "yoyote" or "yoyotl" ahouai
fruit is
name
jagua, or genip, genipapi, or jenipapeiro, Genipa (L.) A. DC. Linnaeus adopted the Indian given
64 Annals of the
Garden
Missouri Botanical
Ewan 44-47.
mThevex'sSingularitezde antarctique France 34. (1969), See note 29.
la la
Amazon
66. The Old World Cerbera manghas 35. Robin Furneaux, The (London, H. Hamil-
(1588), third,
now understood to comprise three elements, ton, 1971), 97.
L., is
according to Herbert Huber in M. D. Dassanayake 36. Hooker correspondence, volume 68, Royal Botanic
and F. R. Fosberg, Flora of Ceylon (Washington Garden, Kew. G. Gardner, Travels in the Interior
and New Delhi, 1983) 4: 53, 54. Such involved of Brazil 1836-1841 (London, Reeve, 1846),
histories of Linnaean species are not unusual. 34. Portuguese edition, (Sao Paulo, 1975), 31.
20. John Gerard, Herball (London, 1633, Johnson 37. Diet, des Sci. Naturelles (1820) 18: 412.
"emaculata" 1545-1546. 38. W. Jepson, High School Flora for California
ed.), pp. L.
2 Crosby, 77. See note 4. See also Finan, ''Maize (Berkeley, Assoc. Students, 1935), 6.
1 1 J. J.
.
W.
the great herbals/^ Annals Missouri Bat. Garden 39. F. Pennell, "Historical sketch," in F. Verdoorn,
in
and America
35 (1948) 149-191. Plants Plant Sciences in Latin (Wal-
35-
22. Joseph Ewan, ''The Columbian discoveries and the tham, Massachusetts, Chronica Botanica, 1945),
growth of botanical ideas with special reference to 48.
Images America, 40. Nelson Papavero, Essays on the History of Neo-
the sixteenth century'' in First of
edited by Fredi Chiappelli (Berkeley, California, Univ. tropical Dipterology (Sao Paulo, Univ., 1971) 1:
807-812, 65-69.
California Press, 1976), 2: n. 4.
23. David Beers Quinn, "New geographical horizons: Lit- 41. L Urban in G. F. P. von Martins, Flora brasiliensis
635-658, 637-638. 210-228.
erature" in Chiappelli, Pp. (1906) (Pt.
1 I):
86-87. Asa Gray
24. Stoudemire, See note 7. 42. Jane Loring Gray, editor. Letters of (Bos-
&
25. N. Ewan, John Banister and his Natural ton, Houghton-Mifflin, 1893) 2: 215.
J.
1678-1692 232-233.
History of Virginia, (Urbana, Illinois, 43. Ibid. 1:
44. 234.
1970). Ibid.
1:
&
26. Feuillee's diagnostic phrase name, Mutli foliis non 45. B. von Spix C. F. P. von Martius, Travels in
J.
serratis, appears under Schinus areira L., Sp. pi. Brazil in the Years 1817-1820. (London, Long-
284-285.
389, characterized by entire leaflets, the usual vari- man, etc., 1824) 1:
ant noticed in California. The Botanical Magazine 46. Ewan, "Only ten feet less" in J. E. Gunckel,
J.
3339 (1834), drawn from a greenhouse plant Current Topics in Plant Science (New York, Aca-
pi.
155-160.
with serrated leaflets, the Linnaean S. molle. Feuil- demic Press, 1969),
is
Ewan
lee's works were noticed by in Herharist 47. Torrey, Jan. 6, 1837, to A. P. de Candolle, Ar-
J. J.
25 (1959), 60-64, and in Amer. Fern Jour. 50 chives, Conservatoire Jardin Botanique Geneve.
(1960): 26-32. 48. See M. Johnston, Jour. Arnold Arbor. 24 (1943):
I.
237-242.
27. Ewan, "Plant collectors in America: backgrounds
J.
Wood, 1810-1881,
Linnaeus" Essays Biohistory (Utrecht, 49. Publications of Alphonso listed
for in in
Regnum Veg. 71. 1970) 22, 50. Fournier, 53-59 mAgric. Library Notes (1927) 2: 95-100. Charles
W. "A 50 Dartmouth
(see note 16). Typification problems reviewed by Lyon, Edition Best Seller"
J.
T. and W. T. Stearn, Taxon 23 (1974): 188- Alumni Mag. 31 (March 1939), 18, 81-83.
Gillis
Ewan
190. Urban, Symholae antillanae (Berlin, 1898) 50. (1969), 44. See note 12.
I. J.
62. 51. Leo Lesquereux, Columbus, Ohio, 13 April 1864, to
3:
28. See note 26. H. N. Bolander. Bolander papers, Bancroft Library,
29. C. Beaglehole, Exploration ofthe Pacific (London, Univ. California, Berkeley.
J.
& Garden
A. C. Black, 1934, 3rd edition. 1966) and Life 52. Julian Steyermark, Annals Missouri Bot.
of Captain James Coo^ (Stanford Univ. Press, 1974), 71 (1984): 302.
Amazon and
passim. 53 Herbert H. Smith, Brazil. The the
30. Ewan, "Silk culture in the colonies, with particular Coast (New York, Scrihners, 1879), 311. Jean de
J.
Novus
reference to the Ebenezer colony and the first local Laet described the tree, called totocke in Orbis
flora of Georgia" Agric. Hist. 43 (1969): 129-141. (1640), 632. Humboldt praised de Laet's "remark-
31. Kristian Hvidt, Von Reek's Voyage. Drawings and able description," see Ewan (1976), 812 and note
Journal of Philip Georg Friederich von Reck (Sa- 3. Bertholletia fruits are "functionally indehiscent''
vannah, Ga., Beehive Press, 1980), esp. 7-25. P. to the ground, the seeds held inside by the small-
fall
A. Strobel, Salzburgers and other Descendents (Bal- ness of the opercular opening or "plug" until the
90-
timore, 1855, reprint, Athens, Georgia, 1953), agoutis gnaw open the fruits, eat a few seeds, i.e.
may
124. Pastor Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, mentioned the "Brazil rmts," disperse others which even-
&
as a visitor, not to be confused with botanist Rev. tually germinate. See Scott A. Mori G. T. Prance,
Henry Ernest Muhlenberg, who did not Georgia. Chapter 6 in R. E. Dickinson, editor, Geophysiology
visit
6989.
32. Ewan (1970), 140-141. See note 29. of Amazonia (New York, Wiley, 1987),
Auk 637-638.
33. E. Dandy, Sloane Herbarium (London, British 54. T. S. Palmer, (1920):
J.
Mus. (Nat. Hist.) 1958), 139-140. Urban, 3: 62. 55. Anton von Leeuwenhoek, Phil. Trans. 17 (1693):
See note 26 706.
