MENZIES' JOURNAL OF VANCOUVER'S VOYAGES. 2$ 



have been a great satisfaction to Menzies in his old age to see 

 the splendid plants he found in 1792 cultivated in the planta- 

 tions and gardens of the Old Country. He little thought, how- 

 ever, that the Douglas fir, Tsuga Albertiana^ Thuya gigantea^ 

 Sitka spruce and Abies gra?idis would one day clothe his native 

 Perthshire hills, and that soon in every British shrubbery would 

 be found Ribes sangutneum, Berberis aquifolium, Spiraea ariaefolidy 

 Gaultheria Shallon, and other now familiar things of his discovery. 



Most of his herbarium specimens were worked out and 

 botanically described by Sir W. J. Hooker, the last plant to be 

 so described, in 1855, being Rhododendron calif ornicuvi , now 

 the State flower of Washington. W. J. Hooker's Flora Boreali- 

 Americana^ 182 9- 1840, contains descriptions of most of Menzies' 

 new species. Menzies gave to his patron, Sir Joseph Banks, 

 most of the botanical specimens collected by him during his 

 two long voyages to the Pacific, and these are now in the 

 British Museum (Natural History), South Kensington. The 

 writer has been through a large number of them, and it was 

 enthralling to see the first herbarium material gathered of so 

 many now well-known plants. A large part of the collection 

 is still in Menzies' original sheets, each labelled in his own 

 hand-writing. 



The well-known Spiraea ariaefolia he calls "Spiraea sp. nov.," 

 and, indeed, nearly all the plants then were new. To many now 

 familiar species he attributed names of nearly related plants he 

 had seen on the eastern side of the Continent and elsewhere,, 

 for example, his ''^ Acer japonicum^' is A. circinatum ; 



his '■'• Acer rubrum " is A. glabrum \ 



his " Rubus odoratus " is R. nutkanus ; 



his " Cornus fiorida " is C. Nuttallii \ 



his ^''Arbutus Andrachne'" \s A. Menziesii; 



his " Mespilus ca^iadensis^^ is Amelanchier alnifolia ; 



his *' Rhodode7idron maximum " is R. californicum ; 



his " Quercus cocci/era " is Q. chrysolepis ; 



his " Quercus alba "is Q. Garry a?ia ; 



his ''^ Laurus nobilis^^ is Umbellularia californica. 



It was curious to find the aromatic scent of the last as strong 

 as ever in a specimen gathered and dried 131 years ago. 



The collection contains a considerable number of the plants 

 Menzies brought back from his previous expedition (i 786-1 789). 



