38 AS CALIFORNIA FLOWERS GROW 



species were named are still perfectly preserved in 

 the British Museum in London. The British atten- 

 tion was called to the rich array of plants iri Cali- 

 fornia when Vancouver visited our shores in 1792, 

 when he was in the Pacific to act as England's rep- 

 resentative to settle the Nootka difficulty. Because 

 that commission of English and Spaniards arranged 

 a settlement of their controversy without going to 

 war, they had more thought to devote to the arts 

 and sciences of Peace. Hence, they kept records 

 of the plants and animals of the foreign countries. 



The botanist of Vancouver's Expedition was Ar- 

 chibald Menzies, a surgeon of the Royal Navy. He 

 had visited the Northwest Coast of America in 1779 

 and had become interested in the flowers. Vancou- 

 ver wrote in his report: "For the purpose of pre- 

 serving such new or uncommon plants as he might 

 deem worthy of a place amongst His Majesty's very 

 valuable collection of exotics at Kew, a glazed 

 frame was erected on the after part of the quarter 

 deck for the reception of those he might have an 

 opportunity of collecting." Menzies collected 

 three sets of California plants, one of which went 

 to Kew Gardens, one to the British Museum, and 

 one to the herbarium of the Botanical Society in 

 Edinburgh. As he was the first scientist to make 

 known many of our plants, his name is applied to 

 a number of the California species. One of the 



