Ives, Eli, 1779-1861:  Yale University pharmacologist and professor active in the Connecticut Medical Society and involved with the founding of the Medical Institution of Yale College. Taught botany and established a botanical garden as part of the medical school. He pioneered in the teaching of childhood medicine and gave the first course in pediatrics in the United States. Studied with, among others, Benjamin Smith Barton at the University of Pennsylvania. Ives created one of the first botanical gardens in New England. 
Phacelia ivesiana  Ivesia gordonii

Ives, J. C. (Joseph Christmas), 1829-1868: As a Lieutenant in the U. S. Corps of Topographical Engineers he served as an Assistant Surveyor to Whipple for a southern rail route in 1853-1854, led an 1857-1858 survey 400 miles up the Colorado to determine the feasibility of navigation and was then the first Caucasian to see the Grand Canyon, of which he famously said: "It looks like the Gates of Hell.  The region ... is ... altogether valueless.  Ours has been the first and will undoubtedly be the last, party of whites to visit the locality.  It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River ... shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed."  His iron steamboat was destroyed on rocks in the Colorado.  Read the Report Upon the Colorado River of the West.  Ives resigned from the Union Army and joined the confederacy. Tetraneuris ivesiana

James, Edwin, 1797-1861: Student of John Torrey and Amos Eaton (grandfather of Daniel Cady Eaton).  Botanist, geologist, and surgeon with the Long Expedition in 1819-1820 and thus the first Caucasian plant collector in Colorado and the central Rockies.  Torrey used James' numerous collections as the basis for the first botanical paper on Rocky Mountain flora.  James and several other members of the Long Expedition were the first to climb Pikes Peak, which was then named "James' Peak".  After his great botanical collecting success on the Long Expedition, James left the botanical world.  See American Journeys for excerpts from James' journal and read James' account of the Long Expedition.  Also see Larry Blakely's "Who's In a Name".  Pseudostellaria jamesiana, Chionophila jamesii, Frankenia jamesii, Eriogonum jamesii

Jones, Marcus Eugene, 1852-1934: Botanist, teacher, preacher, mining engineer. William Weber considers Jones, "probably the greatest collector the West has known".  Jones collected over 500,000 specimens in his nearly 60 years of collecting. In 1923 Jones sold his personal herbarium of over 100,000 specimens to the Pomona College herbarium (now Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden). 

Jones started serious botanizing in Colorado but moved to Salt Lake City early in life and botanized through every county in that state. Both as a botanist and mining expert, Jones travelled hundreds of thousands of miles throughout all western states and into Mexico. Jones was friends and enemies with the most prominent people of the time, from Engelmann and Parry to governors, judges, railway magnets, and industrialists.

Jones was noted for his strongly expressed and very often negative views of everyone and everything. He even wrote up a list ranking botanists of his time according to their value as human beings and botanists. See Botanical Electronic News for a humorously pathetic story of Jones and Edward Greene.

For more about Jones, see the Sego Lily and Lenz.

King, Clarence, 1842-1901: Geologist and mining engineer.  King was a major 19th century scientific figure. Traveled widely throughout the U.S., Cuba, and Europe.  His views were solicited and respected.

After graduating Yale in 1862, King traveled to the West where he found work with Whitney and other survey parties.  From about 1870-1878 King was the U.S. Geologist of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, commonly known as the "Fortieth Parallel Survey" or the "King Survey".  This was a massive federal survey of the 40th parallel through the unknown Sierras.  After being in the party that discovered the highest point in the United States (now known as Mount Whitney), King made four attempts to be the first to climb it.  On his fourth attempt he succeeded, but by then others had already climbed it.  

In the Sierras he found the first U. S. glacier; with John Muir he wrote about the erosive effects of glaciers; he popularized the unknown Sierras with many articles in the Atlantic Magazine; and he was the first to use contour lines in mapping. 

In 1876 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (becoming its youngest member).  In 1879 he became the first Director of the United States Geological Survey, but quit after serving two years to go into private engineering and geological work. His years after resigning his Geological Survey Directorship were fraught with economic, physical, and mental difficulties. 

Click to read his book, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, covering 1864-1870.  He also wrote Systematic Geology in 1878.  King is honored in a number of plant names, including one shown on this website: Eremogone kingii (now Eremogone eastwoodiae)

Knowlton, Frank, 1860-1926: PhD Columbia, paleobotanist, ornithologist, botanist. Assistant to Lester Ward, geologist and paleontologist with the United States Geological Survey. Collected fossils and living plants from Montana to Arizona. Wrote botanical papers: "Flora of the Denver and Associated Formations of Colorado", "Flora of Montana Formations", and various other papers on geological and paleontological subjects. In 1889 he joined the  U.S. Geological Survey as an assistant paleontologist and was associated with the survey until his death. Knowlton was the founder and first editor (1897–1904) of "The Plant World" and he published more than 200 papers and books, including Birds of the World (1909) and Plants of the Past (1927). According to Britannica online, Knowlton "was professor of botany at the Columbian (now George Washington) University, Washington, D.C. (1887–96), and curator of botany and fossil plants at the National Museum, Washington, D.C. (1887–89)". Click to read more about Knowlton and click again to read a number of Knowlton's publications.

In 1889 Knowlton discovered Ostrya knowltonii growing below the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was named for him by USDA botanist, Frederick Coville.

Koch, Wilhelm, 1771-1849: German botanist and physician. Was Director of the Erlangen, Germany Botanical Gardens, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and author of, among other titles, Synopsis Florae Germanicae et helveticae (1835-1837). Neokochia americana

Krascheninnikov, Stephan Petrovich, 1713-1755: Professor at St. Petersburg, Russia; botanist, explorer, author of the first flora of St. Petersburg. Was on The Great Nordic Expedition, the second expedition led by Vitus Bering exploring eastern Siberia with 10,000 men, many of whom died with Bering in their explorations. From 1735-41 Krascheninnikov and the German botanist George Wilhelm Steller explored and gathered data on the Kamtchatka Peninsula and the Kurile Islands. Steller died in 1745 and Krascheninnikov compiled his and Steller's observations on geography, geology, natural history, and the inhabitants.  These observations were published shortly after Krascheninnikov's death in his, History of Kamtchatka and the Kurilski Islands, with the Countries Adjacent.  Krascheninnikovia lanata

Laennec, Rene, 1781-1826: French physician, professor at the Collège de France, inventor of the stethoscope and the various diagnostic uses of it. Considered one of the greatest physicians of all times.  Click to read the U. S. National Library of Medicine article about Laennec.
Laennecia schiedeana

Lambert, Aylmer, 1761-1842: Vice-President and one of the first fellows of the Linnean Society. Not a trained botanist but helped support many botanical ventures, including those of Frederick Pursh who worked several years on his Flora Americae Septentrionalis in Lambert's herbarium (which at one time or another housed about 50,000 specimens).  The Meriwether Lewis collection of plants that Pursh described in his 1814 Flora remained in Lambert's custody until his death. They were then bought at auction and returned to the United States.  Lambert is best known for his book, A Description of the genus Pinus, in which many of the conifers discovered by David Douglas and others were first described. Oxytropis lambertii

Lanszweert, Louis, 1825-1888: Belgian-born San Francisco pharmacist in the early days of the California Academy of Sciences  Lathyrus lanszwertii variety leucanthus 

Lemmon, Sara and John, 1836-1923 and 1832-1908: Sara and John were self-taught botanists whose interests in botany blossomed when they individually moved West -- both especially for health reasons. They were both intellectually active and curious about plants and that led to their meeting each other in 1876 at a lecture John gave in Santa Barbara. Both had already begun collecting plants and Sara also had begun her botanical art work.

Sara and John were married in 1880 and the two began years of travelling and collecting plants, including collecting scores of new species in the West, especially in California and Arizona. John wrote about their honeymoon:

Sara, being as enthusiastic and as devoted to botany as I, was the first to propose that, instead of the usual stupid and expensive visit to a watering-place, idling our time in useless sauntering, and listening to silly gossip, we should wait a few weeks, devoting the time to study; then, at the right time, make a grand botanical raid into Arizona, and try to touch the heart of Santa Catalina.

                    
Original photographs and paintings at the University and Jepson Herbaria Archives, University of California, Berkeley. Photos of these originals by Wynne Brown.

Their botanical exploits made them well-known to the communities they lived in and visited and to professional botanists, such as Charles Parry, Asa Gray, and George Engelmann. In his discussion of the new genera, Plummera, named for Sara Plummer before she became Sara Lemmon, Asa Gray praised Sara and John in his Synoptical Flora of North America for their perseverance and excellent collections and indicated that the specific epithet, "lemmonii", was given in honor of both Sara and John for plants collected in Arizona:

Sara and her husband have shared together the toils, privations, and dangers of arduous explorations in the wilds of Arizona and California as well as in the delights of very numerous discoveries: so that whenever the name of Lemmon is cited for Arizonian plants, it in fact refers to this pair of most enthusiastic botanists. [A similar botanical honeymoon was the 1888 trip of another famous contemporary California botany couple, Mary and Townshend Brandegee.]

Sara's biographer, Wynne Brown, indicates that "the Lemmons discovered, described and named 110 [Arizona] species, or 3 percent of [Arizona's] vascular plants". IPNI (International Plant Names Index) lists 77 taxa published by John Lemmon from 1881 to 1902, but these almost certainly should be credited to Sara and John, for they worked together from at least 1880 onward.

Sara also had several species named for her under her maiden name and John is credited with collecting many species, including new ones, prior to 1876.

Sara was active in community issues: she brought the first library to Santa Barbara, California, and she wrote the legislation for making the California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) the state flower of California. Mount Lemmon in southern Arizona is named for her.

From 1888 to 1892, John served as the state botanist for the California State Board of Forestry and Sara was the official artist for the Board.

Sara and John were among the first Sierra Club members and were friends of John Muir. Sara was chair of the Committee of Forestry of The California Federation of Women’s Clubs. In 1876 John and Charles Parry made an extended botanical expedition and collected many new species. The Lemmons certainly had at least a botanical relationship with Mary Brandegee and Alice Eastwood, for we know that botanical discoveries made by Sara and John were published in Zoe, A Biological Journal, a natural history periodical founded by Mary and Townshend Brandegee in 1890. In 1892 Alice Eastwood became an editor of "Zoe".

A search of the contents of Zoe for the 15 years it was published shows dozens of references to "Lemmon" or "Mr. J. G. Lemmon". Some of those relating to collections made prior to 1876 were collected by John and some by Sara, but those after that date should almost certainly be credited to both Sara and John, but, as was the custom of the time, only the husband was referenced. We know that Asa Gray indicated that all the Arizona collections should be credited to both Sara and John, but in Zoe , the Arizona collections are credited to "J. G. Lemmon" or simply "Lemmon".

There are a few references in Zoe that correctly just reference John, as shown in the following from volumes 3-4 of 1892-1894:

Many botanists write names in their herbaria as a reminder to study such specimens in the future as time admits, and it is not at all probable that Mr. Lemmon, who is much more careful in such matters than Mr. Green, would when he came to study the species [Phacelia rugulosa and Phacelia leucantha) have passed over the very accessible descriptions furnished by the Synoptical Flora.

Further indicating that Sara and John were known (probably well known) to the Brandegees and to Alice Eastwood is that specimens collected by the Lemmons were in the California Academy of Sciences Herbarium, which was curated by Mary Brandegee and then Alice Eastwood.

The Lemmons amassed a valuable herbarium collection which eventually was donated to the University of California at Berkeley and the Jepson Herbaria. Unfortunately, few of Sara's botanical art works survive, many most likely lost in the fires of the San Francisco earthquake.

Click to read Sara Lemmon's "The Ferns of the Pacific Coast".

Click to read "The Southwestern Legacy of Sara Lemmon".

Click to read "Sara Plummer: Pioneering Botanist".

Click for a New York Botanical Garden "Science Talk" about Sara and John.

Click for Wynne Brown's, "The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon's Life of Science and Art"

Click for Wynne Brown's video, "Revealing the Life and Work of Sara Plummer Lemmon".

Click to read John Lemmon's correspondence with George Engelmann.

Click to read Sara Lemmon's correspondence with George Engelmann.

Cymopterus lemmonii  Boechera lemmonii

Lemotte, Maxime, 1920-2007:  Noted French Professor, ecologist, explorer naturalist, geneticist.  Click to read more in Wikipedia.  Tragopogon lemottei  

Lesquereux, Leo, 1806-1889: Lesquereux (pronounced "le crew") was a naturalist, paleontologist, paleobotanist, and bryologist. He was born in Switzerland, was injured severely in a fall when young while plant collecting, remained frail, became totally deaf.  Made himself an expert on peat bogs.  Became friends in Switzerland with Louis Agassiz.  Came to America in 1848 and became intrepid collector. 

Published several books on mosses with William Sullivant in 1856 and 1885.  He became a leading authority on coal deposits and in 1858 presented to the first Pennsylvania Geological Survey a “Catalogue of the Fossil Plants Which Have Been Named or Described from the Coal Measures of North America”.  In 1884 he published Description of the Coal Flora of the Carboniferous Formation in Pennsylvania and the United States.  These works were standards for carboniferous plants in the United States.

Lesquereux accompanied Hayden on the 1874 Survey and wrote the "Paleontology" section of the 1876 Hayden report. Lesquereux is considered America's first paleobotanist.  The Brassicaceae genus "Lesquerella" (Bladderpods) is named for him, but most of the members of this genus have been moved to the Physaria genus.  Lesquerella rectipes  Lesquerella fendleri

Lewis, Meriwether, 1774-1809: Explorer, scientist, Thomas Jefferson's Secretary, revered and acclaimed leader of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition (what Jefferson called the "Corps of Discovery") which, among many other remarkable accomplishments, gathered extensive scientific (including botanical) information.

In 1803 Jefferson asked Benjamin Barton, famous botanist, University of Pennsylvania Professor, and author of the first United States botany textbook, The Elements of Botany, to train Meriwether Lewis in botany for the 1804-1806 Expedition.  On the Expedition Lewis carried a copy of the Elements which he returned to Barton inscribed with a note of thanks after the Expedition. 

Lewis was a receptive student under Barton, in large part because he had already learned many elements of botany from his mother and his own studies. On The Lewis and Clark Herbarium CD by Earle Spamer and Richard M. McCourt (produced by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia), we learn that he had the "soul of a plantsman".

A typical day on the trail found him looking for plants along the Missouri River and in the surrounding Great Plains. Or near a campsite in a mountain meadow of the Rocky Mountains. Or at the salty mouth of the Columbia River where it drained into the Pacific Ocean. In dangerous places and at inopportune times, Lewis collected plants. So long as circumstances permitted, even in improbable situations, he collected. It was not only his duty to collect, it was his passion.

Equally remarkable, he wrote with enthusiasm about them in the voluminous journals and in numerous notes on the blotting papers used to dry the plants. Lewis' descriptions could be brief but were often quite detailed. The following is from his account of a plant that botanist Frederick Pursh would later name in honor of expedition co-leader, Captain William Clark (Moulton, 1991: 323-324).

I met with singular plant today in blume of which I preserved a specimine; it grows on the steep sides of the fertile hills near this place, the radix is fibrous, not much branched, annual woody, white and nearly smooth. the stem is simple branching ascending, 2 1/2 feet high celindric, villose and of a pale red color . . . the style which elevates the stigma or lib is not a tube but solid tho' it's outer appearance is that of a monopetallous corolla swelling as it ascends and gliding in such manner into the limb that it cannot be said where the style ends, or the stigma begins; . . . I regret very much that the seed of this plant are not yet ripe and it probably will not be so during my residence in this neighbourhood.

We can imagine how Lewis worked. He clipped or pruned plant parts or uprooted entire specimens, and placed them in a dry oilskin bag. Later, laying the plants flat on a specimen page, Lewis sandwiched them between pages made of blotting material. He recorded the collection locality, date, and habitat on the blotter paper itself, along with occasional comments on how the Native Americans ate or used the plants. Lewis then stacked the plants between two boards and tied the plant press together with straps. Lewis probably placed the plant press near the evening fire, where warm air helped dry the collection. Over the course of several days, water was squeezed from the plants, and, once dry, specimens were kept flat and dry in another press.

Much later, other botanists glued the specimens to high-rag content herbarium sheets and stored them in protective cabinets in a museum. Those from the Aylmer Lambert Herbarium in London were mounted in or after 1812. The sheets bear a distinctive watermark (illustrated by Cutright, 1967: 82). The unmounted specimens found in the American Philosophical Society were mounted in the Academy in 1921 by John M. Fogg, Jr. (Fogg, 1982). If kept dry and free from insects and physical damage, such specimens last for centuries, as Lewis's specimens have for the last 200 years.

Unfortunately much of the botanical collection from the Lewis and Clark Expedition was lost in varying places and in varying ways.  For instance, early in the Expedition, Lewis sent Jefferson about 60 specimens. Jefferson in turn sent these for analysis to Barton, whom Jefferson had asked to do the botanical descriptions of the Expedition collections, but about half of the sixty specimens disappeared and have never been found. 

A far larger loss came with the destruction of hundreds of plant specimens that Lewis had collected during the first months of the trip and that he had cached on June 26, 1805.  The cache was flooded in the spring of 1806 and by the time Lewis opened it on July 13th, 1806, fungus had destroyed hundreds of hours of his work.  One would expect that Lewis was shattered by the loss, and he may have been, but there is no sign of his horror in his diary entry of July 13, 1806:

"had the cash opened    found my bearskins entirly destroyed by the water, the river having risen so high that the water had penitrated.     all my specimens of plants also lost.      the Chart of the Missouri fortunately escaped" [This "Chart" is now lost.]"

Lewis makes no further mention of the loss in his journal entries. We might understand Lewis' calm acceptance of travails when we place the loss of the specimens in the light of the difficulties of the entire trip. For instance, immediately after finding the specimens destroyed, Lewis tells us:

"the stoper had come out of a phial of laudinum and the contents had run into the drawer and distroyed a gre[ar]t part of my medicine in such manner that it was past recovery. waited very impatiently for the return of Drewyer he did not arrive. Musquetoes excessively troublesome insomuch that without the protection of my musquetoe bier I should have found it impossible to wright a moment".

And just the day before:

"about this time two of the men whom I had dispatched this morning in quest of the horses returned with seven of them only. the remaining ten of our best horses were absent and not to be found. I fear that they are stolen.... the wind blew so violently that I did not think it prudent to attempt passing the river.... Musquetoes extreemly troublesome".

From July 1, 1805, a typical entry:

"my feet is verry much brused & cut walking over the flint, & constantly stuck full [of] Prickley pear thorns, I puled out 17 by the light of the fire to night    Musqutors verry troublesom." 

Undaunted courage.

Lewis' plant collections during the three years of the Expedition certainly numbered in the many, many hundreds, but we now have only 226 specimens at The Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia and another 11 at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England. (Four of the specimens included in the 226 in the Academy's possession are now known to be those collected by Thomas Nuttall, but they are kept with the Lewis collection for historical reasons.)

When the Expedition ended there were, of course, celebrations, but there was still the task of describing the entire trip and documenting the collections. Barton, who had been considered for the Expedition but was not asked to participate because of his old age (37) and his questionable health, was to have described the flora but he did not -- apparently because of his health and his predisposition to procrastination.  Bernard McMahon, renowned horticulturalist, respected scientist, and friend of Jefferson, Barton, and the well-respected botanist, Frederick Pursh, suggested that Pursh organize and describe the collection. It would then fall to Lewis to put everything into an organized narrative. 

In 1807 Lewis met Pursh, was very impressed, and paid Pursh about $70 to begin the work which Pursh completed in a little more than a year. He then returned most of the collection to McMahon, took some of the collection to England to examine, and there published the collection (along with many other plants he and others had collected) in his highly praised 1813 (1814) Flora Americae Septentrionalis.  (All but a few of the Expedition specimens which Pursh had taken with him were bought at auction years later and returned to the United States. See Lambert above.)

Tragically, Lewis felt increasingly troubled, pressured, and distraught in the years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and he was unable to fulfill his own and Jefferson's expectations for publishing the results of the Expedition.  He completed almost no work on the Expedition narrative. In 1809 he died, apparently by his own hands, although some conjecture at the hands of a robber/murderer.

Lewis was intelligent, dedicated, enthusiastic, and so appreciative of life. On the Expedition(August 18, 1885) he wrote in his journal,

This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended.    but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and at least indeavour to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestoed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.

Following are four lists of species that were collected by Lewis and are shown on this website. The first list shows species named for Meriwether Lewis. The second shows species that Lewis collected that are "types", i.e., the first of their kind ever recorded for science. The third shows species that we now know were types, but for varying reasons were never authenticated for science. And the fourth shows species that that were already known to science. The four lists show a total of 66 species on this website, about 30% of the existing Lewis collection.

1) Three species on this website honor Lewis in their names: Lewisia nevadensis,  Lewisia pygmaea, and Linum lewisii. 

2) Twenty seven species shown on this website were first found for science by Lewis and he is credited with discovering them. (There are a total of forty new species credited to Lewis.)

Achillea millefolium, Astragalus multiflorus, Atriplex canescens,
Balsamorhiza sagittata, Bistorta bistortoides, Claytonia lanceolata,
Clematis hirsutissima, Erigeron compositus, Ericameria nauseosus,
Erythronium grandiflorum, Gaillardia aristata, Grindelia squarrosa,
Gutierrezia sarothrae, Ipomopsis aggregata, Krascheninnikovia ceratoides,
Linum lewisii, Lomatium triternatum, Lupinus argenteus, Lupinus pusillus,
Paxistima myrsinites, Cleomella serrulata, Phacelia heterophylla, Purshia tridentata, Ribes aureum, Sarcobatus vermiculatus, Shepherdia argentea,
Xanthisma spinulosum

3) On this website are twenty four additional species that we now know Lewis was the first to collect for science, but they are not credited to him. A collection must be properly described and published for it to be accepted, but these twenty four plants (and others) that Lewis collected were, for a number of reasons, not described by Pursh or anyone else:
1) We don't know why, but Pursh examined only 124 of the at least 237 specimens that were collected by Lewis, so Pursh must not have seen some or all of the 24 plants listed below.
2) In some cases Pursh misidentified the plants or could not identify them.
3) Some specimens were quite small or very partial and not until decades later was enough known about the plants to make a positive identification.

The reasons for the lack of credit given to Lewis are best summarized by Reveal et al. who published in the "Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. 149 (Jan. 29, 1999), pp. 1-64" the most thorough research of every plant that Lewis collected. Before proceeding to a review of each of Lewis' collections, Reveal indicates that,

"for a number of reasons (the most common being inadequate material) Pursh did not mention... 63 species or varieties of vascular plants. A few, such as Equisetum arvense, Hordeum jubatum, and Prunus virginiana, were widespread in North America and noting their distribution in the American West was mostly not important. A few were mixed collections that Pursh could not possibly have unraveled at the time (Atriplex gardneri and Sedum lanceolatum for example). Some specimens he failed to thoroughly evaluate and thus missed the opportunity to describe such novel species as Anemone piperi, Dodecatheon poeticum, Erysimum capitatum, Pedicularis cystopteridifolia, and Penstemon wilcoxii. Still, all in all, not bad."

Most of the twenty four species that Lewis did not receive credit for were collected again by other botanists within 10 years of the time that Lewis collected them. Because the species were then properly described, credit for their discovery was given to these other intrepid explorer/botanists of early western America. Thomas Nuttall is credited with discovering 5 of these species and his friend Nathaniel Wyeth is credited with discovering 2 more. David Douglas is credited with 5 of them and John Bradbury with 3. Others of these twenty four species were not described until much later in the 1800s and they were credited to a number of other collectors.

Allium geyeri, Amelanchier alnifolia, Artemisia ludoviciana,
Astragalus missouriensis, Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus,
Collinsia parviflora, Collomia linearis, Erysimum capitatum, Erythranthe guttatus, Geum triflorum, Iris missouriensis, Juniperus scopulorum, Lomatium dissectum,
Lonicera involucrata, Oenothera caespitosa, Pinus ponderosa,
Polemonium pulcherrimum, Rhus aromatica, Rubus nutkanus,
Sedum lanceolatum, Sorbus scopulina, Sphaeralcea coccinea, Triteleia grandiflora, Veratrum californicum.

4) This website shows fourteen other Lewis collections which were known to science prior to the Lewis and Clark Expedition:
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Artemisia dracunculus, Artemisia frigida,
Atriplex gardneri, Calypso bulbosa, Cerastrium arvense, Dalea candida,
Dasiphora fruticosa, Equisetum arvense (on August 10, 1804, E. arvense became the first plant Lewis collected on the Expedition), Pedicularis groenlandica,
Populus deltoides, Potentilla pensylvanica, Pseudotsuga menziesii,
Vaccinium myrtillus

Further readings:

Click for the entire (searchable) "Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition", made available online by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities
in partnership with the University of Nebraska Press. Be sure to see the "Links" page.

Click for the "Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition" edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites.

Click for the American Philosophical Museum Lewis and Clark collection.
Click for the "Discovering Lewis and Clark" website plant collection.
Click for "The Lewis and Clark Collections of Vascular Plants: Names, Types, and Comments".
Click for "What's lost, what's left: A status report on the Plants and Animals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition".
Click for "The Lewis and Clark Herbarium: Images of the Plants Collected by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, 1804-1806". Photographs and descriptions of most plants collected by Lewis.
Click for the National Park Service website: "Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, Lewis and Clark's Scientific Discoveries: Plants".

There are many books and many online sources about Lewis and Clark. Several excellent online starting points are The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia website and Discovering Lewis and Clark. For the most extensive collection of online Lewis and Clark documents see American Journeys.

Also be sure to read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose.

Lid, Johannes, 1886-1971: Norwegian botanist. Lid was a major contributor to the Nordic Herbarium at the University of Oslo Botanical Museum.  Lidia obtusiloba

Linnaeus, Carl, (1707-1778): Physician, Professor, Prince of Botanists, traveler, revered friend, devoted husband and father. From early in his life Linnaeus was enamored of all things natural: birds, insects, mammals, rocks, and especially plants. By his continual devotion to the natural world through his collections and studies he so impressed his professors and fellow students that in his young twenties he became a sought after instructor, filling lecture rooms with hundreds of students enthralled with his knowledge and power of presentation.

Especially in his early years as a student, Linnaeus had terrible financial difficulties and lived an impoverished life. His genius was, however, quickly recognized by established scientists. At Uppsala University medical school, natural history Professor Olaf Rudbeck (the Younger) elevated Linnaeus to lecturer in just his second year of medical school and Rudbeck brought Linnaeus into his house as tutor to three of his children. Linnaeus finally had food, shelter, and even could replace his shoes, which until then had holes stuffed with paper. One indication of Linnaeus' gratitude was his naming of a new American species: Rudbeckia hirta.

In addition to financial difficulties, Linnaeus was also beset by social and professional difficulties from time to time  --  as we might suspect for anyone who was wielding a sledge hammer against established practices. Overall, however, his supporters by far outweighed his detractors and his assiduous compilation of facts convinced many, even those who had long held onto superstitious beliefs and factually unsupported supposed science. Linnaeus was especially loved and followed by students.

Eventually Linnaeus was financially well-rewarded for his work as a physician, he was companion and close friend to leading scientists, and, especially in his late 20s and throughout his 30s, he travelled widely and was commonly the guest of kings, queens, and the most eminent naturalists, botanists, and philanthropists of Europe. New acquaintances, whether they were royalty, scientists, or wealthy amateur naturalists recognized Linnaeus' genius and became his students and benefactors.

His work as a physician was on the cutting edge of science and for years he successfully treated hundreds of patients weekly. In 1743 the king of Sweden honored Linnaeus with the title of Archiater (Chief Physician).

Linnaeus was always the astute observer of the natural and man-made world and these observations were methodically recorded and widely distributed in his writings. But beyond all, his observations, collections, innovations, and writings about plants made the most profound changes in the world. He described hundreds of new plant species, devised the binomial classification system, and in his works, especially in his 1753 Species Plantarum (click the title to read this seminal work which is referenced dozens of times in this website), he described over 12,000 plants and his name is forever attached to these with the simple "L".

What isn't so apparent, until one reflects on it, is that all of this work required not only devotion, knowledge, time, and stamina, but also methodology. How did Linnaeus compile, file, sort, retrieve, and update his tens of thousands of pieces of information about the natural world? Linnaeus used a number of information systems and in his 50s he became the first to use index cards. Click to read, "Natural History and Information Overload: The Case of Linnaeus, a scholarly and thought-provoking examination of Linnaeus' information systems. Following are the concluding paragraphs of this article:

Linnaeus’s choice of paper technologies derived from his day-to-day work on a high volume of specimens and documentation, and not from a preconceived method that he stuck to for the rest of his life. Much like his fundamental ideas on genera and the natural system, the tools he created kept evolving and taking shape on an ad hoc basis. As his work progressed and the volume of data increased, Linnaeus found himself overwhelmed by new information. He had to move on from simple tables and diagrams to more complex and flexible ways of organising his data, and he did so in a manner that can be characterized as experimental. A successful solution to the problem of information overload, like the reduction of species to genera in the form of paper technologies such as files, index cards, or books used as annotation platforms, would thus generate the same kind of ‘excess’ that is typical for research enabling technologies in general (Shinn & Joerges, 2002). New entities like the genus entered the scene and created a foothold for the observation of a vast range of new relationships. What we observe in Linnaeus is comparable, perhaps, with the new emphasis on pathways and processes in the wake of the deluge of gene expression data that the use of chip technologies has precipitated in systems biology.

This brings us to a final observation. Linnaeus’s research was, as we saw, deeply influenced by economic concerns, to the extent that these cannot be dissociated from his botanical endeavours. This entwinement of basic with applied research is, again, typical of research technologies. It is likely, that Linnaeus was inspired in developing his own paper technologies by what he saw in the studies and cabinets of the many friends and acquaintances he had among the agricultural, industrial and medical elites of Sweden. But his data collection enterprise was also dependent on large-scale technological systems—the paper trade, the printing press, and the book market; a global system of postal communications; the ships and posts of trading companies—without which his activities could never have reached the scale that was needed to reach new levels of abstraction and generalisation. It is this aspect, perhaps, that reminds us most of today’s data-driven science which is equally propelled by the prospect of economic and medical benefits.

Throughout his life, Linnaeus not only sought knowledge but he also shared it: "Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach". Several dozen of his students became professors and continued his work. A number of his students travelled the world and brought him thousands of nature's treasures. Solander collected plants on the first of Cook's round the world voyages. Linnaeus wanted Solander to be his successor, but with a recommendation from Linnaeus in his hand, Solander travelled to England and, to Linnaeus' great disappointment, never returned to Sweden and did not collect for Linnaeus. Instead Solander became Assistant Librarian at the British Museum, collected on the Cook expedition, became naturalist Joseph Banks' librarian, and died at the age of 46, having never returned to his native Sweden.

Sparrman when just 24 was collecting plants in South Africa when he joined Cook's three year round-the-world voyage and over several decades made plant collecting trips to China and Africa.

Thunberg sailed with the Dutch East India Company to Japan. He collected 300 new species in South Africa, staying there for three years and continued on to Java, Japan, Ceylon, etc. returning to Sweden after nine years of travelling and collecting.

Linnaeus once wrote, "Good God! When I observe the fate of botanists, upon my word, I doubt whether to call them sane or mad in their devotion to plants".

Linnaeus loved his native Sweden and the city of Uppsala and though he received numerous lucrative and prestigious employment offers from universities and herbaria in Holland, Germany, Spain, France, and England, he and his wife and children made Sweden their home. Linnaeus loved his homeland and worked for its improvement through the understanding of its flora and fauna. He believed that science could improve the health and economy of his homeland.

But Linnaeus' work went beyond his homeland. He devoted his life to the understanding and ordering of nature. His work remains the basis of modern natural science.

Linnaeus' name is, appropriately, plant-based: the Linden tree.

Linnaean Manuscripts.

Linnaean Correspondence.

Click for the 300th birthday celebration.

Click for "The Swedish Linnaeus Society".

Click for "The Linnean Society".                            

Click to read more about Linnaeus.

And read more.

Natural History and Information Overload: The Case of Linnaeus

Click for photos of Linnaea borealis, Linnaeus' favorite plant.

Lister, Martin, 1638-1712: Doctor, naturalist. Published on meteorology, mineralogy, zoology, botany, and medicine.  Acquaintance of and botanical collaborator with John Ray. Fellow of the Royal Society. Perhaps the first to suggest the need for and usefulness of geologic surveys.  Listera cordata

Lloyd, Edward, 1660-1709: Well-liked, scholarly antiquarian, linguist, geologist, botanist; traveled, observed, and collected throughout British Isles. Friend of Isaac Newton. John Ray used some of Lloyd's botanical collections in his floral publications. 

From 1690 Lloyd was Keeper of the Ashmoleum Museum of Art and Archaeology, Britain's oldest public museum. Fellow of the Royal Society. Wrote the first book on British fossils. Began a natural history of Celtic Great Britain but published only one volume before his early death.

Lloyd showed that a distinct alpine flora existed in  Snowdonia (a mountainous area of northwest Wales, now home to Snowdonia National Park.)   Lloyd discovered Lloydia serotina in the Welsh mountains: Click to see Lloydia which is called the "Snowdon Lily" in its Welsh home.)

Lloyd, Francis Ernest, 1868-1947: Taught at Williams College, Pacific University, Columbia University, Alabama Polytechnic, and then McGill from 1912 to 1934 where he was the MacDonald Professor of Botany until his retirement. Co-authored The Teaching of Biology in the Secondary Schools. Helped found and develop the American Society of Plant Physiologists. Researched at the Desert Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute of Washington. President of the Royal Society of Canada. Click to read Lloyd's "The Carnivorous Plants".   Viola macloskeyi

Lonicer, Adam, 1528-1586: German professor, physician, herbalist, and botanist who added his own wide knowledge to works by many previous herbalists and created a herbal book that was commonly in use for over two centuries after its publication in 1557.  Abe Books is presently selling one of his herbal publications for $15,625.  Lonicera involucrata

Malcolm, William (d.1798) Well-known and respected 18th century British nurseryman. According to "UK Parks and Gardens", "William Malcolm was a nurseryman, in business at Kennington, near London in the 1750s [1757]. He moved to a larger nursery at Stockwell in 1788". A number of Malcolm's catalogs, such as, "Forest Trees, Shrubs, etc." are available for viewing online.

Another William Malcolm (1768-1835), probably a nephew, had a well-known nursery business after the first William Malcolm's business closed. The later William Malcolm had his business in Kensington, not Kennington.

The genus name, Malcolmia, was given by botanist Robert Brown (1773-1858) in 1812, so it is likely that Brown new both William Malcolms and may have been honoring both with the genus name.  Malcolmia africana

Matsudo, Sadahisa, 1857-1921: Japanese botanist Sadahisa Matsudo wrote one of the first floras of China and systematically described the plants of the country.   Salix matsudana

McCauley, Charles Adam Hoke, 1843-1913: Soldier, naturalist. Was ornithologist with 1876 Red River Expedition. In charge of military survey of Southwest Colorado in the vicinity of Pagosa Springs and produced the report, "The San Juan Reconnoissance in Colorado and New Mexico in 1877".  Also wrote "Pagosa Springs, Colorado, its Geology and Botany" in 1879. Was first to introduce the use of signaling mirrors to Army. In 1879 Asa Gray named Ranunculus macauleyi for him.

McMahon, Bernard, 1775-1816: Nurseryman widely respected for his horticultural knowledge. McMahon is credited with publishing the first seed catalog in the U.S. and the first information about landscape design.  Some of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was planned in his home, he was instrumental in getting Pursh to work on the Expedition's botanical collection, and he germinated and distributed seeds collected on the Expedition. 

In 1806, he wrote The American Gardener’s Calendar, which became the standard gardening authority in America, going through eleven editions until 1857.  It is still available. 

McMahon and Jefferson corresponded regularly,  McMahon forwarded the newest vegetable and flower varieties to Jefferson, and Jefferson considered McMahon's Calendar his horticultural Bible.

Nuttall honored McMahon in the genus name "Mahonia", a genus collected by Lewis. Mahonia fremontii, Mahonia repens

Mentzel, Christian, 1622-1701: German botanist, philologist, botanical author, personal physician to the Elector of Brandenburg, and father of the first King of Prussia. Among his works were Index nominum plantarum universalis multilinguis (1682) and Sylloge minutiarum lexici latino-sinico-characteristici (a Chinese-Latin dictionary, 1685). He also compiled the never-published Flora Japonica based on pictures and paintings of Japanese plants sent to him by his friend Andreas Cleyer.  (All biographical information quoted from Michael Charter's superb website: California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.)  Mentzelia albicaulis and Mentzelia pterosperma

Menzies, Archibald, 1754-1842: Physician, Scottish botanist, protégé of England's great explorer/botanist/philanthropist, Joseph Banks. (See Larry Blakely's Who's In a Name? for a biography of Banks who among other things was the naturalist aboard Captain Cook's first round-the-world voyage and promoted and financed Captain Bligh.) 

As a naturalist aboard the "Prince of Wales" (which was outfitted for fur trading), Menzies sailed around the world from 1786-1789, and gathered plants for Joseph Banks who then recommended Menzies to George Vancouver as his surgeon-naturalist on the HMS Discovery Expedition of 1790-1795. 

Menzies' presence on the Vancouver Expedition made Menzies the first scientist to explore the Pacific Northwest.  During this Expedition, probably in 1791, Menzies collected the first specimens of what we now call Pseudotsuga menziesii (commonly called Douglas Fir because for many years it was thought that Douglas had collected the first specimens of this plant).  For an enlightening, intriguing, eye-opening, mind-boggling view into the complexities and vagaries of the naming of plants, see James Reveal's excellent discussion of "Douglas Fir" on the Lewis and Clark website.  (On a related nomenclatural story, see the complete story of the naming of  Picea pungens on this Four Corners Wildflowers website.) Click for details about Menzies explorations along the Pacific coast.

Menzies was elected a member and later president of the Linnean Society.
Anotites menziesii   Pseudotsuga menziesii

Mertens, Franz Carl, 1764-183: Plant collector specializing in algae; had an extensive herbarium; authored and edited a number of works including an edition of Johann Christoph Röhling’s Germany’s Flora with W. D. Koch.  Mertens became Principal of the College of Commerce, Bremen.  He met eminent botanist Albrecht Roth and the two shared a number of collecting trips.  Mertens was also a botanical illustrator.  He had extensive correspondence with natural scientists of his day and these letters are preserved in the Hunt Institute.  Mertens' son, Karl Heinrich Mertens, died at the age of 34 but had already become an eminent explorer and botanist. Mertensia spp.

Metcalfe, Orrick, 1879-1936: Well-respected plant collector in New Mexico and Arizona in the early 1900s, especially 1902-1905. Student of E. O. Wooton at the New Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanic Arts (now New Mexico State University). Wrote senior thesis (1903) and master's thesis (1904) on flora of southern New Mexico. Collected many hundreds of plants (600-700 plants in Grant County in 1904-1905) and has a number of species named for him. Click for Standley's list of New Mexico plant type localities and collectors of these plants. Do a search for "Metcalfe" on this document to see how extensively Metcalfe collected.

The New Mexico State Herbarium, founded in 1890, houses among its collection the vouchers used for the first Flora of New Mexico by Wooton & Standley, 1915, and also includes the collections from renowned botanists E.O. Wooton, O.B. Metcalfe, and C.G. Pringle.

Oxalis metcalfei

Minuart, Juan, 1693-1768: Spanish botany professor, botanical writer and apothecary, in Barcelona and Madrid. It was in Madrid that he and Jose Martinez established a native plant garden which eventually was incorporated into the Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid when it was founded in 1755. Minuart was a close friend of Linnaeus. The following three species are no longer in the Minuartia genus; the first two are in Sabulina and the third is in Cherleria. Minuartia macrantha   Minuartia rubella   Minuartia obtusiloba    

Moehring, Paul, 1710-1792: East Frisian physician, botanist, ornithologist, and zoologist. Moehringia machrophylla