fVVAN: SAN FRANCISCO AS A MECCA FOR NINETEENTH CENTURY NATURALISTS 3 



the agriculturist, George Tsehernikh, and I. G. Vosnesensky, curator of the 

 Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg. The plant collections of Vosnesensky 

 came back to San Francisco, to the Academy, after lying in their herbarium 

 covers for nearly a hundred years in Russia. The collections were returned to 

 California for identification by John Thomas Howell, and then sent to Lenin- 

 grad's national herbarium. 



In 1824 hide ships began operating along the California coast. These vessels 

 were the source of introduction of many organisms, some injurious: insects, 

 weeds, and rodents. This traffic in hides marked the reintroduction of some weeds 

 earlier introduced with the Mission Period which began in 1769 with the founding 

 of Mission San Diego. One of these ships took on a little piece of immortality, 

 for it was the Alert that carried Thomas Nuttall from California around the 

 Horn, with that commentator of the day, Richard Henry Dana. 



The British expedition under Captain Beechey visited California in 1827. 

 The natural history collections were made on the voyage of H.M.S. Blossom 

 by the ship's surgeon, Dr. Alexander Collie, assisted by George Tradescant Lay, 

 and Lieutenant Belcher. The Blossom was in port twice, from November 7 to 

 December 28, 1826, and November 19 to December 3, 1827. Dr. Collie collected 

 the t5T)e specimens of thirteen species of birds either at San Francisco or Monte- 

 rey, both ports having been visited twice on the voyage. 



The French sailing vessel Heros put in at San Francisco on January 26. 

 1827, with a surgeon on board, Dr. Paolo Emilio Botta, who was then twenty-one 

 years of age. Botta collected both birds — including the roadrunner — and plants. 

 The Heros spent nearly two years intermittently on the coast, from Fort Ross 

 to San Diego, finally departing on July 27, 1828. The California buckeye, named 

 Calothyrsus calif ornica by Spach, was one of Botta 's collections. 



David Douglas, "Douglas of the Fir," arrived in San Francisco in 1831, fol- 

 lowing his first highly successful visit to America. His California visit introduced 

 dozens of species to horticulture and to systematic botany. Douglas botanized as 

 far south as Santa Barbara, making the Franciscan missions his lodging places 

 along the route. It is unfortunate that his fieldbooks were lost for few explorers 

 in California natural history would have had so much to tell. "Douglas, no mere 

 collector, was a skilled natural scientist in his own right. Of his character and 

 personality, what more need we say than that he courageously faced adversity 

 for the science he loved, and died in pursuit of knowledge?" 



The Irish naturalist. Dr. Thomas Coulter, first served as a physician to a 

 mining company in Mexico before coming to Monterey in 1831, where he met 

 David Douglas in November. Coulter spent nearly three years on the Coast, 

 including a trip to the Colorado Desert, but did not remain on the Coast to meet 

 Nuttall, who closely followed him. Coulter may have met Ferdinand Deppe, a 

 professional collector from Berlin, at jMonterey but we have only fragmentary 

 knowledge of Deppe, save that he arrived in California during the winter of 

 1831-1832, possibly from the Mexican port of Loreto. David Douglas had met 

 Deppe in California sometime prior to October 24, 1832, and Deppe was at 

 Monterey as late as December, 1834, when he shipped bird skins to Lichtenstein, 

 then director of the Zoological jVIuseum of Berlin. The beautiful endemic ]\Iatilija 

 poppy, Romneya coulteri, was one of Coulter's discoveries in southern California. 



Thomas Nuttall and John Kirk Townsend crossed the continent together witli 



