236 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



A Century of Botany in Indiana. 



John M. Coulter. 



The opening of the century we are celebrating was remarkable in the his- 

 tory of American botany. During the two preceding centuries American 

 botany had been developing unfler European influence. It began to develop 

 under home influence approximately in 1815. About this date a number of 

 American publications appeared dealing chiefly with local floras, and marking 

 the beginning of American botanical publication by American botanists. 

 A mention of these publications will illustrate the fact that what seemed to 

 be the ps^ychological uioment for the beginning of American botany expressed 

 itself in several almost simultaneous publications; and it will also serve to 

 introduce us to the beginnings of liotany in Indiana. 



In 1813, Muhleulierg, a Lutheran minister of Philadelphia, j)ublished the 

 first catalogue of North American plants, which of course was a very meager 

 representation of a great continental flora. In 1814, Bigelow, a physician of 

 Boston, published a flora of Boston and vicinity. Jn 181.5, Barton, Professor 

 of Botany in the University of Pennsylvania, published a flora of Phila- 

 delphia. In 1817, Raflnesque, a man of hybrid origin and a wanderer, pub- 

 lished his "Flora of Louisiana." Louisiana had been admitted as a state five 

 years before, as a part of the much more extensive "Louisiana Purchase." 

 In this Flora, Raflnesque nu-ntioned certain plants as extending up the 

 Mississippi and its tributaries, some of which he had ol)S(>r\ ed in Indiana. 

 The year 1817, is so near the beginningof our century tliat botany in Indiana 

 has been said to be, in a general way, contemporaneous with Indiana as a state. 



Since Rafinesque may be regarded as the jHoneer Indiana botanist, a 

 brief mention of this singular man will be appropriate. When .Jordan began 

 his study of fresh water fishes, he encountered the pioneer work of Rafinesque, 

 and proceeded to uncover the facts of his life. Finally, in 1895, the Filson 

 Club of Louisville i)ublished an elaborate memoir by R. Vj. Call, in which all 

 available infornuiti(m in refercTice to Rafinesque was l)rought together. This 

 restless and unique mituralist canu' to the United States for the second time 

 in 1815, and began his wanderings of twenty-five years, which extended as 

 far west as the .Mississippi. lb* followed down the Ohio river, exploring for 

 the first time the flora of Ohio, Kentucky, In<liana, and Illinois, settling for 

 a time in that famous community at New Harmony on the Wabash. Jordan 

 calls attention to the fact that in that day New Harmony was a center of 

 American science. The first scientific contact with Indiana plants, therefore, 

 was along the Ohio, and especially at the falls of the Ohio, and in the vicinity 

 of New Harmony. 



Rafinesque's vivid description of his experiences in traveling through the 

 forests (if our nascent state is worth preserving. He traveled always on foot 



