no SHORT ON WESTEJIN BOTANY. 



bulb— the gay and graceful Hesperis jnnnatifida — the Osage 

 apple or orange of Arkansas, most appropriately named in 

 honour of William Maclure, the American patron of the Natu- 

 ral Sciences, &c. Of late, Mr Nuttall's predilections seem 

 to run cliiefly in the line of ornithology, on which he has pub- 

 lished in Boston two volumes, illustrated with very neat wood- 

 cuts of many of the birds of America. Recently, however, 

 he has given to the public two lengtiiy papers on the subject 

 of American Botany, one in the Transactions of the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society, entitled " Contributions towards a 

 Flora of Arkansas," containing descriptions of the plants, 

 which he had detected in his travels tlu-ough that territory; 

 the other, " Notices of new and rare species from various 

 parts of the American Union." 



The lovers of Natural Science will be gratified to learu 

 that Mr Nuttall is now engaged in making further explorations 

 of the Rocky mountains, the river Oregon, and the conti- 

 guous islands of the Pacific Ocean ; from which, in addition 

 to his already well-earned reputation, he will doubtless acquire 

 a distinguished character, as an enterprising naturalist. 



Theorder of our inquiry next leads us to notice the labours 

 of another expedition of discovery sent by the general Gov- 

 ernment to the Rocky mountains, by way of the Platte branch 

 of the Missouri, and thence homeward by the Arkansas river- 

 This expedition, under the command of Major Long, had at- 

 tached to it several gentlemen eminently qualified to observe, 

 collect, and report on the natural productions of the inter- 

 esting and unknown regions through which they passed- 

 These were Drs Baldwin and James, Messrs Say, Peale anJ 

 Jessup, the botanical investigations being particularly •»' 

 trusted to the two former. This party left Pittsburgh i" 

 May, 1819, and in October of the following year, assembled 

 at Cape Gerardean, on the Mississippi, where it was dispersed- 



At Franklin, on their outward journey, this party was 

 deprived of the professional and scientific services ot l)^' 

 Baldwin, by the lamented death of that gentleman, whose 

 ardour in the pursuit of botanical knowledge, led him to 



