26 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
He was one of the honorable company of gardeners 
who have proved themselves also good botanists. Born 
at Ayr, Scotland, June 16, 1810, he came to this country 
in 1837 and entered the employ of a Philadelphia nursery- 
man. The next year he received an appointment as 
horticulturist and assistant botanist of the United States 
Exploring Expedition under command of € ‘aptain Wilkes 
and sailed with it in August, 1838. The expedition 
spent three and a half years in explorations in South 
America, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and the then 
little known coasts of California and Oregon, returning 
in June, 1842. It brought back some ten thousand 
specimens of dried plants, 100 living ones and many 
seeds. 
The organization of the expedition was continued 
in order to work up its scientific results. Brackenridge 
was put in charge of growing the plants brought home 
and raised from seed and in this work he continued 
until 1854, when the organization was broken up. To 
him also was assigned the duty of reporting on the ferns 
collected. There have been few authors more unfortu- 
nate than was Brackenridge with this, his one botanical 
work. His initial difficulty—that he knew no Latin— 
was overcome with the aid of Professors Torrey and 
Gray, who translated his descriptions into that lan- 
guage, and the work was duly issued in 1854, only to 
have the greater part of the edition destroyed by two 
nearly simultaneous fires, one in Washington, and one 
at the printers’ in Philadelphia. As a result, complete 
copies of this Report—an excellent piece of work—are 
rare. 
After leaving the Government service, Brackenridge 
established himself as a nurseryman and landscape 
architect near Baltimore and there remained until his 
death, February 3, 1893. 
