BOTANICAL RESEARCH IN ALASKA 

 William C. Steere 



Professor of Biology 

 Stanford University 



A glimpse at the history of botanical research in Alaska 

 reveals immediately the lack of any innate or guided tendency 

 toward integration or coordination, and makes very clear the 

 necessity for our present Conference. Georg Wilhelm Steller, 

 in 1741, "was not only the first white man to set foot on Alaskan 

 soil, but was also the first naturalist to collect, study and de- 

 scribe Alaskan plants and animals at a time when the world 

 did not even know of the existence of Alaska." Born and edu- 

 cated in Germany, Steller was naturalist to the last voyage of 

 exploration of Vitus Bering, under the auspices of the Russian 

 government. Following the pioneer work of Steller, further 

 botanical studies were made through the years in a casual, more 

 or less accidental way by other expeditions of exploration- 

 Russian, Spanish, English, Scandinavian, and American. The 

 British voyages in search of a northern ship passage above the 

 North American continent, and the land and sea parties sent 

 out in search of Sir John Franklin about the middle of the last 

 century, were all productive of considerable incidental botani- 

 cal information. From 1867, when the United States purchased 

 Alaska from Russia, until now, occasional botanical investiga- 

 tions have been made officially and unofficially by several 

 agencies of the United States government and at the expense 

 of the government: the Smithsonian Institution, the U. S. 

 Bureau of Fisheries, the Bureau of Soils, the Forest Service and 

 several other agencies of the Department of Agriculture, the 

 Coast Guard, various branches of the Geological Survey, and 

 other governmental organizations. During World War II, 

 many Armed Forces personnel made botanical studies and col- 

 lections in Alaska quite outside the line of duty. At the mo- 



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