An overlooked early collection from the Rocky Mountains 



Willard T. McLaughlin 



A chronological list 1 of plant collections made within the 

 area now included in the state of Montana fails to take cogni- 

 zance of a small but interesting series of specimens brought back 

 to Northwestern University and eventually deposited in what 

 is now known as the Babcock Herbarium of that institution. 

 The collector was Air. Oliver Marcy, for many years Deering 

 Professor of Natural History and curator of the institution's 

 natural history museum. 



In April, 1866 Mr. Marcy left Old Mission, California, as a 

 member of a government survey party sent to survey the Lolo, 

 Lou Lou, or Northern Nez Perces Trail through the Bitter Root 

 Mountains of Idaho and Montana. The plants collected on this 

 expedition, numbering about 150 specimens, were identified by 

 Asa Gray and George Vasey. They have been gone over and 

 the nomenclature rechecked by the writer. 



The following account is taken from a narrative of the trip 

 written by Mr. Marcy and published in the Annual Report of 

 the Department of Natural History, Northwestern University, 

 for the year 1887. 



"In 1863 gold was discovered at Alder Gulch, now Virginia 

 City, Montana. Then the merchants of the west coast petitioned 

 Congress to build a wagon road from Lewiston, Idaho, to Vir- 

 ginia City, Montana. An appropriation was voted for that pur- 

 pose. In 1866 a party was sent to Lewiston with instructions to 

 make a rapid reconnoisance, select a route, and proceed to con- 

 struct a road. The Lou Lou trail was the shortest and the most 

 feasible trail across the mountains, but the sum appropriated 

 was not large enough to construct a road on this or any other 

 route between the points. The money was expended on this 

 trail. 



"The latitude of the Lou Lou trail is about 46° 30'. It crosses 

 the Bitter Root Mountains from the great plain of the Columbia 

 on the west to the Bitter Root Valley, in Montana, on the east. 



"Eastward from Craig's Mountain the plateau is a grassy 

 plain, much cut up with canons. At the crossing of the Clear- 



1 Blankinship, J. W. A Century of Botanical Exploration in Montana. 

 Montana Agric. Coll. Sci. Studies 1: 1-31. 1904. 



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