108 SHORT ON WESTERN BOTANY. 



ously of tlie aids fiirnislied him in that great emporium of all 

 science, the British capital, and particularly in referring to tlie 

 extensive Herbaria there collected of American plants. 



In this work of Pursh, frequent references are made to Wes- 

 tern plants and Western localities; but for all such he must 

 have been indebted to the Michauxs, Nuttall, Bradbury, Men- 

 zies, Lyon, Lewis, and other explorers of Western America; 

 of the labours of all of whom he appears to have freely avail- 

 ed himself in enriching his work, and too often, as I am con- 

 strained to believe, without making the proper acknowledg- 

 ments. Nevertheless, whatever may be the minor inaccuracies 

 of this work, or the reprehensible mode in which some of its 

 materials may have been collected, it must be confessed duit 

 it was, and indeed still continues to be, tlie most complete aiw 

 extensive Flora ever yet published of our country. 



About the year 1815, this country was visited by th*^ 

 Abbo Correa de Serra, a man of distinguished attainments i» 

 natural science, as well as general literature, whom Jeffrey, tbe 

 former well known editor of the Edinburgh Review, calls "the 

 learned Portuguese." On his return to Philadelphia, where 

 he then resided, Mr Correa spoke to us in rapturous terms ot 

 the Botany of our native State, Kentucky; and especially oi 

 his astonishment at finding in our mountains an arborescent 

 Andromeda, having never befoi-e seen any other than shruhby 

 species. We are not aware, however, that this gentleman 

 ever published any thing on the natural history of this region, 

 except a paper in the Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, more particularly on the Geology oi the 

 West. 



We come in the next place to notice the labours of an inJ'- 

 vidual, much more immediately identified with the interests 

 and advancement of Western Botany than any of those who 

 had preceded him. I allude of course to Mr Thomas Nut- 

 tall, whom we have already mentioned more than once. An 

 Englishman by birth, he was at an early age thrown on oiu* 

 shores, where he soon became enraptured with its natural 

 productions, and has since devoted his life ( xclusively to then" 



