Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. n 



discoveries of mine of which ignorance has doubted, 

 till science has proved that I was right.&quot; To us, at 

 this time, the interesting fact connected with the find 

 ing of this specimen and supposed new species lies in 

 the evidence which it affords that Rafinesque was for 

 ever wedded to his loves, the flowers. Here he was, at 

 the age of eighteen, in a new land, on fortune bent, in 

 the midst of strangers who spoke a strange tongue, yet 

 he at once turned to the woods and fields, a real student 

 of Nature, and averse to any thing else. 



The Philadelphia business relations of Rafinesque 

 were those which eventually determined his coming to 

 Kentucky some eighteen years afterward. While in that 

 city he came into relation with the Cliffords, owners of 

 the vessel which brought him to America; also here he 

 met the brothers Tarascon, formerly of Marseilles, whose 

 names are familiar to all students of early Kentucky 

 history. At this time Rafinesque was busied with mer 

 cantile pursuits, occupying a clerkship, but filled all his 

 leisure with botanizing in the vicinity of Philadelphia. 

 He declares that during this period he minutely de 

 scribed all the plants found, a task quite characteristic 

 of the man! He had already determined upon follow 

 ing the footsteps of his father, and devoted himself to 

 mercantile pursuits, prosecuting his Nature studies in 



