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DR. HENRY N. BOLANDER, BOTANICAL EXPLORER. 

 By Willis L. Jepson. 



Late in the summer of 1846 a large number of people in the 

 town of Schleuchtern, near Frankfort, in the province of Hessen- 

 Nassau, Germany, were making preparations to emigrate to America. 

 A lad of fifteen, named Henry Nicholas Bolander, a native of the 

 town, his boyish mind filled with thoughts of new scenes and strange 

 lands, pleaded that he be allowed to join the company, a request 

 which was finally granted him. September of the same year saw 

 the German strangers in New York. The destination of the boy 

 immigrant was Columbus, Ohio, in which city he had an uncle resi- 

 dent. This relative planned for him a clergyman's career, and in 

 compliance with his guardian's wishes the youth entered the Lutheran 

 Seminary of Columbus, where he was graduated and duly ordained. 

 He never, however, filled at auy time a religious office, and in 1851 

 he entered as a teacher the German-English schools. Any thought 

 of leading a clerical life was now definitely abandoned ; for his desires 

 were not at all so inclined. On the contrary, his tastes were being 

 turned in a very different direction, and by a person whose influence 

 was vastly more potent than that of his uncle. This person was 

 none other than Leo Lesquereux, the nearest neighbor, who intro- 

 duced him to the study of plauts, and who nourished his growing 

 enthusiasm to such a degree that he made botanical trips through 

 Ohio and the neighboring states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana 

 and southern Illinois. Notwithstanding his active life he was 

 annoyed by illness peculiar rather to persons of sedentary habit, and, 

 having acquired four months' leave of absence, he visited Germany 

 and returned with restored health. This was not, however, of last- 

 ing benefit, and four years later his physician advised a permanent 

 change of climate, and he determined to remove his residence to 

 California. 



The 5th of December, 1861, saw him landed in San Francisco. 

 The dry season had been broken by rains, which were long con- 

 tinued; it was then raining and it continued to rain until May of the 

 following year. The winter of 1861-62 was a " wet winter," one 



Erythea, Vol. VI, No. 10 [31 October, 1898]. 



