14 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
TOLMIE. 
Dr. W. F. Tolmie (died in 1886) went to Fort Vancouver in 1832 
as a medical officer to the Hudson Bay Company. He had been a 
pupil of Sir W. J. Hooker, to whom he sent many botanical speci- 
mens. Tolmie’s duties caused him to travel quite widely in the 
Northwest, but little is known of the details of his journeys. He 
was the first botanist to visit Mount Rainier, on the slopes of which 
he collected in 1837. Tolmie’s specimens are mostly labeled “ Fort 
Vancouver,” “ Multnomah River,” and “ N. W. Coast.” Many speci- 
mens collected in the “ Snake country ” of south Idaho and described 
in the Botany of Beechey’s Voyage, are usually accredited to Tolmie, 
though he expressly states that they were gathered for him by a 
friend. 
GAIRDNER. 
Dr. Meredith Gairdner, a surgeon of the Hudson Bay Company, 
collected a few plants about Fort Vancouver, where he died prior to 
1840. His specimens are at Kew. Carum gairdneri, the finest food 
plant of the northwestern Indians, commemorates his name. 
WYETH. 
Nathaniel Wyeth, the adventurous and enterprising American trav- 
cler and trader, crossed the continent on his first journey in 1832. 
On his return trip in 1833 he crossed the mountains in north Idaho, 
and made a small collection of plants on the Flathead River. These 
were described by his friend, Nuttall, in the Journal of the Phila- 
delphia Academy of Sciences, new series, volume 7. Wyeth’s jour- 
nals were published in 1889 by the Oregon Historical Society. 
NUTTALL. 
Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859), an Englishman by birth, one of the 
most acute and able of American botanists, spent the years 1834 to 
1836 botanizing in the West. He was a member of Wyeth’s second 
expedition, crossing the continent by the “ Oregon Trail.” He 
reached Fort Walla Walla about September 3, 1834, and Fort Van- 
couver September 16. On the overland trip Nuttall collected a very 
large number of species, considering the circumstances. December 11 
he sailed for the Sandwich Islands, returning to the Columbia the 
following spring. His headquarters during 1835 were on Sauvie 
Island, at the mouth of the Willamette River, then called Wappatoo 
Island. Nuttall made but few and short excursions from his base, 
apparently finding enough to occupy his energies there. He did, 
however, collect about the Willamette Falls, Fort Vancouver, and the 
mouth of the Columbia. His original collection is in the British 
