178 
from the accounts of observant travelers and explorers, and from 
specimens and seeds carried to Europe by them and by traders, 
Living plants and seeds were grown in European gardens, and 
it was from material raised in hs way that most of the early 
technical descriptions of American plants were drawn. The col- 
ectors possessed little or no el knowledge, and the 
scientists who studied the collections can not be classed as 
in any sense 
The first settler of whose scientific attainments as a botanist 
we have positive ees was John Banister, a aia etihe in 
Virginia, who lost ae ‘by falling from some rocks while 
one of his ee eee In 1680, Banister sent a list 
of Virginian plants to John Ray, of England, who published it as 
an appendix to his Historia Plantarum in 1688. Fifty years had 
elapsed, however, before the appearance of a work dealing ex- 
clusively with North American plants, and nearly a century before 
the first botanical work was published in North America. 
John Clayton, who came from England to Virginia in ae 
and was for 51 years clerk of Gloucester County, prepared 
scholarly work on Virginian plants. Of course he lacked facil- 
ities for publication, and for the aes or his plants with 
those previously described ; his specimens and manuscripts were 
sent to Holland, where the flora was published under the editor- 
ship of Gronovius, whose blunders are to be found on nearly 
every page. ayton’s botanical exploration covered all of 
eastern Virginia, and extended through many years; even the 
he 
made a botanical tour through Orange County. All of the care- 
fully prepared manuscripts and collections left by him were de- 
stroyed by fire a few years later, during the Revolutionary War. 
While Clayton was pursuing his explorations in Virginia, Cad- 
walader Colden was studying the flora of his great three-thousand- 
acre estate, ‘Coldenham,” in the colony of New York. Dr. 
Colden was a very busy man, nearly always holding some public 
office of importance, and at one time lieutenant-governor of the 
colony of New York; yet, with the aid, no doubt, of his gifted 
daughter, he found time to prepare a careful account of the 
