42 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



Much of the early botanical exploration was, however, carried 

 out by European botanists : Andre Michaux [b. near Versailles, 

 1746, d. Madagascar, 1802], a pupil of the Jussiens and an ex- 

 perienced explorer, was sent by this government, in 1785, to 

 collect useful trees and shrubs for naturalization in France. He 

 remained eleven years ; made extensive explorations in the 

 regions then accessible, and as far west as the Mississippi ; sent 

 home immense numbers of living plants ; and, after his return, 

 in 1796, published his treatise on the American Oaks,* and pre- 

 pared the materials for his posthumous u Flora Boreali-Ameri- 

 canas." 



Fran9ois Andre Michaux [b. near Versailles, 1770, d. at 

 Vaureal, 1855] was his father's assistant in these early travels, 

 and in 1802 and 1806 himself made botanical explorations in the 

 Mississippi Valley. His botanical works were of great impor- 

 tance, t especially that known in its English translation as the 

 " North American Sylva," afterward completed by Nuttall, and 

 still the only work of the kind, though soon to be supplemented, 

 we hope, by Professor Sargent's projected monographs. 



Frederick Pursh [b. 1774, in Tobolsk, Siberia, d. June n, 

 1820, in Montreal, Canada] carried on botanical explorations 

 between 1799 and 1819; living, from 1802 to 1805, in Philadel- 

 phia, and from 1807 to 1810 in New York. In 1814 he pub- 

 lished in London his " Flora Americae Septemtrionalis." Pursh' s 

 Flora was largely based upon the labors of the American bot- 

 anists Barton, Hosack, LeConte, Peck, Clayton, Walter, and 

 Lyon, and the botanical collection of Lewis and Clarke, and 

 enumerated about 3,000 species of plants, while Michaux's, 

 printed eleven years before, had only about half that number. 



A. von Enslen collected plants at this time, in the South and 

 West, for the Imperial Cabinet in Vienna. C. C. Robin, who 



* Histoire des che'nes de PAmerique Septentrionale, 1801 ; 36 plates, 

 f Voyage a Pouest des monte Alleghany, &c. 8vo, pp. 684. Paris, 1808, 

 Jlistoire des arbres fbre*stieres de PAmerique, Septentrionale. 



