CAREX EXPLORATION IN CALIFORNIA 

 AJjfi HISTORICAL NOTE 



By Willis Linn Jepson. 



The earliest botanical explorers in California, beginning with Haenke and 

 Menzies (1791 to 1794) and coming down to the time of Nuttall and Hartweg (1835 

 to 1845), either gave little attention to the collection of Carex or the records of their 

 work are inadequate. The great folio work, the Reliquia; Haenkeanae of Presl, in 

 which Haenke's California collections were described, does not record a single 

 species of Carex from California. The indefatigable Douglas did not neglect Carex, 

 but so far as the California supplement is concerned the order Cyperaceae is not 

 mentioned in Hooker and Arnott's Botany of the Beechey. Bentham's Plantae 

 Hartwegianae records two species as collected by Hartweg in the Sacramento valley. 



The decades since the American occupation of California may be divided into 

 three periods: the early or gold- discovery- period (1848 to 1874), in which the in- 

 fluence of the Pacific Railroad-Surveys and the California Geological Survey pre- 

 dominated; the middle period from 1875 to 1899, when members of the California 

 Academy of Sciences took the lead in collecting; and the period of the botanical 

 departments of the universities, during which time university-activities became 

 enlarged and stabilized, that is, from 1900 to the present time. 



During the gold-period resident botanists entered the field, and it is due to the 

 exertions of these early explorers, that the knowledge of California Carices began to 

 develop. Albert Kellogg, resident in the San Francisco bay region from 1849 until 

 his death in 1887, devoted his leisure to the study and collection of the native flora. 

 Among numerous other genera, Carex claimed his interest, and he collected many 

 specimens of this genus. Geo. Thurber, attached to the Mexican Boundary Survey, 

 collected at scattered points in the state in 1851 and 1852. As botanist of the Pacific 

 Railroad Survey under Capt. Whipple, J. M. Bigelow traveled through the San 

 Francisco bay region and the northern Sierra Nevada in 1854. A few Carices are 

 found in his general collection. During the four years from 1861 to 18G4 W. H. 

 Brewer, botanist of the California Geological Survey, worked throughout the state. 

 Specimens of Carex formed a substantial part of his collections, and Carex Breweri, a 

 characteristic High Sierran species, was named for him by Boott. 



In 1861 there arrived in California from Ohio the young botanist, Henry N. 

 Bolander. Bolander was an unusual type of collector, both in method of collecting 

 and in breadth of interests. He had a superior capacity for collecting seed-plants 

 and at the same time was gifted with a keen eye for mosses and other cryptogams. 

 In particular he was possessed of an unflagging interest in Graminales and was 

 especially devoted to the sedges. While he collected widely through the state, his 

 Carices were gathered mainly in Mendocino County, the San Francisco bay region 

 and the central Sierra Nevada. His Carex specimens were excellent and will remain 

 classical. The work that he did was commemorated by Olney in naming for him 

 Carex Bolanderi, a species of the Yosemite region, where he worked so effectively. 

 Bolander was active from the period of his arrival until about 1873, and succeeded 

 Brewer as botanist of the California Geological Survey. Although Bolander pub- 

 lished new species of Californian grasses, neither he nor Kellogg ventured to give 

 names to any of their new species of Carex. In his " Catalogue of the plants growing 

 in the vicinity of San Francisco" (1870), Bolander 's special interest in Carex is, 

 however, evident for he lists with habitat and locality thirty-five species. 



