XVlll. 



Mensies Journal. 



channels on the east side of Redonda Island, and of the anchorage on 

 its west side where the Spanish and British ships lay for seventeen 

 days from June 26th until July 13th. From the mountain on the 

 north of this anchorage there can be little doubt that Mr. Mudge first 

 sighted the cape to which Vancouver gave the discoverer's name. 



Menzies relates how he climbed this mountain, accompanied by 

 some of the ship's officers and men, and the height given by him as 

 shown by a small mercurial barometer tallies closely with that given 

 on the charts for Nipple Mountain. 



Beginning his botanical work in Port Discovery, some 24 nautical 

 miles from Victoria, he found a Flora almost identical with that of 

 South-east Vancouver Island, with the addition of the fine large 

 Rhododendron which is now the State flower of Washington. He 

 speaks enthusiastically of the scenery and climate of this region, and 

 mentions, under the names of similar trees and shrubs which he had 

 collected in Nova Scotia, nearly all of their conspicuous relatives as 

 he met with them. 



It was in Port Discovery, too, that he first saw the Arbutus which 

 bears his name and which is such a plentiful ornament of the coast 

 from Victoria to Comox. On Protection Island he noticed that plant 

 of peculiar distribution, the Cactus, now known as a variety of Opuntia 

 polyacantha. 



Although Menzies was a generous donor of the great collections 

 he made during his voyages, it was many years before his specimens 

 were described and recorded. Amongst the earliest authorities to 

 undertake this work were Sir J. E. Smith, founder and President of 

 the Linnean Society of London (1791); R. A. Salisbury (1806); 

 Esper (1800-1808); Turner, c. (1808-1819) ; Acharius (1810); 

 Pursh (1814); and Lambert (1803). When Pursh was writing his 

 Flora Americse Septentrionalis he had in his charge a collection of 

 plants made during the Lewis & Clark expedition of 1 804-1 806, and 

 these had the first claim upon his attention. 



It will be noticed that many of the species from the coast, the 

 types of which are attributed to these explorers, had already been 

 mentioned or collected some ten years earlier by Menzies. 



Sir W. J. Hooker's work in connection with the description of 

 Menzies' plants seems to have commenced in 1830 (Botanical Miscel- 

 lany), and to have ended with his description of Rhododendron 

 californicum in 1855. But his most frequent quotations of Menzies' 

 collections, with descriptions of new species, are to be found in his 

 Flora Boreali- Americana, 1 829-1 840. 



