NINETEENTH CENTURY. 293 



Potts, who went in search of plants in China and the East 

 Indies, also died from the effects of the climate. John 

 Dampier Parks followed him to China, and found a number 

 of plants there, and James Roe searched successfully in 

 America and the Sandwich Islands. The well-known collector, 

 David Douglas, was also employed by the Horticultural 

 Society. He was born at Scone in 1799, and as a lad came 

 under the notice of Sir William Hooker, then Professor at 

 Glasgow. Hooker recommended him to Joseph Sabine, the 

 Secretary of the Society, and Douglas was sent out to North 

 America and California. The wealth of plants there discovered 

 by him was unprecedented, flowers as well as trees. The 

 number of conifers he sent home was so astonishing he wrote 

 on one occasion to Hooker, " You will begin to think that I 

 manufacture Pines at my pleasure." Besides the well-known 

 Douglas pine (Abies Douglasii) he enriched this country with 

 many others, Pinus Lambertiana, Pinus insignis, Pinus 

 ponderosa, Pinus Sabiniana, Picea nobilis, Pinus grandis, the 

 beautiful Taxodium sempervirens, and many more, which now 

 adorn Pinetums and woods in all parts of England. At 

 Dropmore there is a Douglas pine grown from seed given by 

 the Horticultural Society to Lord Grenville in 1827. The tree 

 was planted out in 1830, and in 1886 was 124 feet high, with 

 a girth of fifteen feet. Besides these wonderful conifers we 

 owe many other plants to Douglas.* The red-flowering Ribes 

 now so common he sent home ; also Calochorti, Clarkias, 

 Gaillardias, Godetias, Collinsias, Lupines, Eschscholtzias, 

 Mimuli, and Pentstemons. After many years of search in 

 America, he went to seek more treasures in the Sandwich 

 Islands, and met his death in a very sad way soon after his 

 arrival there in 1834. He fell into a deep hole cut by natives 

 for catching wild cattle, and was killed by one of the animals 

 in it. Such a tragic end to one who had done so much, did 

 not deter others from risking their lives in search of plants in 

 strange countries. More pines were collected in California by 



* The plants are described by Hooker, Flora Boreali Americana, and in 

 the Botanical Magazine. 



