EES ot 
ATT 
IL. 
SKETCH 
OF THE 
BOTANY OF DR. A. WISLIZENUS’S EXPEDITION 
FROM 
MISSOURI TO SANTA FE, CHIHUAHUA, PARRAS, SALTILLO, MONTEREY, 
AND MATAMOROS. 
PRINTED SEPARATELY FROM A “‘Memorr or A Tour To Norraern Mexico 1n 1846 anv 1847, ny A. Wistizenvs, M.D., 
PRINTED FOR THE USE OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED States.” WASHINGTON, 1848, 
Dr. WisLizeENus has intrusted to me his very interesting botanical collections, with the 
desire that I should describe the numerous novelties included in them. Gladly would I have 
done so, had not leisure been wanting, and were I not here (in St. Louis) cut off from large 
collections and libraries. As it is, I can only give a general view of the flora of the regions 
traversed, and describe a few of the most interesting new plants collected; with the apprehension, 
however, that some of them may have been published already from other sources, without my being 
aware of it. 
In examining the collections of Dr. Wislizenus, I have been materially aided by having it in 
my power to compare the plants which Dr. Josiah Gregg, the author of that interesting work “The 
Commerce of the Prairies,” has gathered between Chihuahua and the mouth of the Rio Grande, 
but particularly about Monterey and Saltillo, and a share of which, with great liberality, he has 
communicated to me. His and Dr. W.’s collections together, form a very fine herbarium for those 
regions, 
The tour of Dr. Wislizenus encompassed, as it were, the valley of the Rio Grande and the 
whole of Texas, as a glance at the map will show. His plants partake, therefore, of the character 
of the floras of the widely different countries which are separated by this valley. Indeed, the flora 
of the valley of the Rio Grande connects the United States, the Californian, the Mexican, and the 
Texan floras, including species or genera, or families, peculiar to each of these countries. 
The itethenstern portion of the route traverses the large western prairies, rising gradually 
from about 1,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, near Independence, Missouri, to 4,000 feet west 
of the Cimarron River. The plants collected on the first part of this section, as far west as the 
crossings of the Arkansas River, are those well known as the inhabitants of our western plains. I 
mention among others, as peculiarly interesting to the botanist, or distinguished by giving a 
character to the landscape, in the eee t in which they were collected, Tradescantia Virginica, Phlox 
