A CENTURY OF BOTANICAL EXPLORATION IN MONTANA. 



I. BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS MADE IN MONTANA. 



Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition, 

 made the first collections within the present state of Montana. The 

 route of this expedition was np the Missouri, Jefferson and Beaver- 

 head rivers, down the Bitterroot and across through the Lolo Pass 

 (Apr. 28 to Sept. 3, 1805), returning (the Lewis party) by way of 

 the Big Blackfoot, the Lewis & Clark pass, down Sun river, up the 

 -Marias to its head-waters and down the Missouri (June 29 to Aug. 

 7, 1806), all the Montana specimens except one or two being col- 

 lected on the return. Some 33 of the specimens brought back were 

 from Montana and of these about two-thirds were new to science. 

 These were published in Pursh's "Flora" and enumerated again by 

 Meelian (Proc. Acad. Phila. Jan. 1898: 12-49), while the collection 

 itself is in the herbarium of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Sciences. 



[Thomas Nuttall seems never to have been within the bounds of 

 the present state of Montana, although authors have mistakenly 

 referred many of his specimens collected in Wyoming and Idaho to 

 this state. He ascended the Missouri river with John Bradbury 

 in 1810 as far as the eastern part of Mercer county', North Dakota* 

 and accompanied the \Yyeth Second Expedition** of 1834-6, which 

 passed far south and west of this state.] 



David Douglas, an English horticulturist and botanical explorer, 

 may possibly have reached the extreme western limits of the state 

 about 1826, though his own account (Comp. Bot. Mag. 2: 82-177 and 

 Trans. Hort. Soc. London, 7: 513) does not make this at all certain. 



Alexander Philipp Maximilian, Prince of Neuweid, travelled up 

 the Missouri JRiver as far as the Gate of the Mountains, 1832-34, the 

 botany of the expedition, published as an appendix to his 

 "Travels",** ; being elaborated by Nees von Essenbeck. 



*Bradbury's Travels in the Interior of America, 1809-1811. Early Western 

 Travels by R. G. Thwa.it.es. Cleveland, O. 1904. 



**Townsend, J. K.: "Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains 

 to the Columbia River and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, Etc., with 

 a scientific appendix." Philadelphia. 1839. 



***Reise in das innere Nordamerica iv> den Jahren 1832-1834, 2 vols. Coblenz, 

 1841. French edition, Paris, 1843; English edition, London, 1843. 



