HO BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



an exhaustive summary of the botany of the country as then 

 known, and so was the more readily prepared. Michaux came to 

 this country in 1785, returned to France in 1796, left again in 

 Baudin's expedition to Australia in 1800, and died of fever in 

 Madagascar in 1802. The Flora purports to be edited by his son, 

 F. A. Michaux, who signed the classical Latin preface. The 

 finish of the specific characters, and especially the capital detailed 

 characters of the new genera, reveal the hand or a master; and 

 tradition has it that these were drawn up by Louis Claude Richard, 

 who was probably the ablest botanist of his time. This tradition 

 is_ confirmed by the fact that Richard's herbarium (bequeathed to 

 his son, and now belonging to Count Franqueville) contains an 

 almost complete set of the plants described, and 1 found that the 

 specimens of Michaux supplied to Willdenow's herbarium at Ber- 

 lin were ticketed and sent by Richard. Not only the younger 

 Richard but Kunth also habitually cited the new genera of the 

 work as of Richard, and some others have followed this example. 

 Singularly enough, however, there is no reference whatever to 

 Richard in any part of the Flora, nor in the elaborate preface. 

 The most venerable botanist now living told me that there was a 

 tradition at Paris that Richard performed a similar work for 

 Persoon's Synopsis Plantmlim, and that he declined all mention 

 of his name in the Synopsis and in the Flora, because the two 

 works — contrary -to the French school — were arranged upon the 

 Linnsean Artificial System. lie had his way, and the tradition 

 may be preserved in history; but his name cannot be cited for the 

 genera Elytraria, Micranihemum, Elodea, Stipulicida, Dichrmnena, 

 Oryzopsis, Erianihus, and the like. For, by the record these are 

 of Michaux, Flora Boreali-Americana, and not of Richard. 



Michaux's explorations extended from Hudson's Bay, which 

 he reached by way of the Saguenay, to Florida, as far, at least, 

 as St. Augustine and Pensacola; he was the first botanical explorer 

 of the higher Alleghany Mountains, and, crossing these mountains 

 in Tennessee, he reached the Mississippi in Illinois, and was as far 

 south as Natchez. His original itinerary, which I once consulted, 

 is preserved by the American Philosophical Society, at Philadel- 

 phia, to which it was presented by his son. It ought to be printed. 

 That little journal shows that it was not Michaux's fault that the 

 first Flora of North America was restricted to the district east of 

 the Mississippi River. He had a scheme for crossing the conti- 

 nent to the Pacific. He warmly solicited the government at 

 Washington to undertake such an exploration, and offered to ac- 

 company it as naturalist. This may have been the germ or the 

 fertilizing idea of the expedition of Lewis and Clark, which was 

 sent out a few years afterward by Jefferson, to whom, if I rightly 

 remember, Michaux addressed his enterprising proposal. 



Leaving out the Cryptogams of lower rank than the Ferns, 

 we find that the Flora of Michaux, published at the beginning of 



