28 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 465 



they would give an account through the columns of Garden 

 and Forest of their personal experience. . 



Amherst College, Mass. 



Recent Publications. 



The First Account of Some Western Trees/'— I. 



Lewis and Clark, in their expedition across the continent 

 from the mouth of the Missouri River to that of the Colum- 

 bia on the Pacific coast during the years 1 804-1 806, were 

 the first white men to cross the Rocky Mountains within 

 the present territory of the United States, and their geo- 

 graphical and natural history observations are therefore of 

 peculiar interest. The value of the journals of these two 

 great explorers, first edited by Nicholas Biddle, is moreover 

 now greatly increased by the learned notes with which 

 Dr. Coues has enriched a new edition of this classical 

 work. Lewis and Clark were the discoverers of many 

 interesting and important trees, and it is solely with refer- 

 ence to the trees mentioned in their journals that we now 

 propose to examine this new edition. 



Following their journey we find (i., 63) that when the 

 party had reached a point 690 miles above the mouth of 

 the Missouri, on the 30th of July, 1804, the Lynn, among 

 other trees, was noticed. This is referred by Dr. Coues to 

 Tilia pubescens, a species, however, confined exclusively 

 to the coast region of the south Atlantic states ; and it is 

 evident that the Linden of the Missouri bottoms was Tilia 

 Americana, our common northern species. On the 16th of 

 September (i., 119), not far from the confluence of the 

 White River with the Missouri, the party was encamped 

 " in a beautiful plain, with timber thinly scattered for three- 

 quarters of a mile and consisting chiefly of Elm, Cotton- 

 wood and some Ash of indifferent quality, and a consider- 

 able quantity of a small species of White Oak." This last 

 Dr. Coues refers to Quercus undulata, var. Wrightii. More 

 probably, however, the Oak seen here was Quercus macro- 

 carpa, which extends farther to the north-west than any of 

 our Atlantic species ; and this determination seems to be 

 confirmed by the description of the cup of the acorn 

 " which is fringed on the edges and embraces it about one- 

 half." Quercus undulata and Quercus Gambellii, the two 

 Rocky Mountain White Oaks, which are often confounded 

 in some of their forms, are not known east of the conti- 

 nental divide north of the Platte River in Colorado. On 

 October 2d the party fell in with a Mr. Valle, a French trader, 

 who had visited the Black Hills, which he described to 

 them as covered with great quantities of Pine (i., 150). 

 This is Pinus ponderosa, and probably the first authentic 

 allusion in literature to this widely distributed tree, which 

 was not described technically until the appearance of Lou- 

 don's Arboretum in 1838. Sergeant Gass, in ascending 

 White River on September 15th (i., 117), had seen, how- 

 ever, Pine burrs and sticks of Birch floating down the river. 

 These Pine burrs must, of course, have been the cones of 

 Pinus ponderosa from the pineries of north-western 

 Nebraska. 



On April 12th of the following year (i., 268), after the 

 winter passed near the Mandan villages, a species of dwarf 

 Cedar which "spreads its limbs along the surface of the 

 earth, which is almost concealed by its closeness and thick- 

 ness and is sometimes covered by it, was noticed above 

 the mouth of the Little Missouri." Judging by the descrip- 

 tion of its leaf, which "is more delicate than that of the com- 

 mon Cedar, though the taste and smell are the same," it 

 is, no doubt, rightly referred by Dr. Coues to Juniperus 

 Sabina, var. procumbens, which ranges westward to the 

 eastern foot-hills of the northern Rocky Mountains. 



The Ash-tree seen on April 20th (i., 277), near what 

 is now the eastern borders of Montana, must certainly 

 have been the Green Ash, Fraxinus Pennsylvanica, var. 

 .lanceolata, as doubtfully determined by Dr. Coues ; and 

 in the same paragraph there is a reference to Service- 



* History of the Expedition under the command of Lewis and Clark. A new edition 

 by Elliott Coues. In 4 vols. Francis P. Harper. New York, 1893. 



berries, being the first appearance in literature of the 

 western species of Amelanchier, described many years 

 afterward by Nuttall as Amelanchier alnifolia, unless, as 

 we suspect, the berries, " which my people called poires, 

 and were of a purple hue, somewhat bigger than a pea, 

 and of a luscious taste," found by Alexander Mackenzie in 

 August, 1789, to the north of Slave Lake, were derived 

 from this Amelanchier ( Voyages, 107). Under the entry of 

 Wednesday, July 17th, 1805 (ii., 419), the western Amelan- 

 chier is shown to differ in some points from that of the 

 United States; "the bushes," we are told, "are small, 

 sometimes not more than two feet high, and rarely exceed- 

 ing eight inches. They are proportionally small in their 

 stems, growing very thickly, associated in clumps. The 

 fruit is of the same form, but for the most part larger and 

 of a very dark purple." 



On the nth of May (i., 306), being in Montana, the 

 party saw and visited "some high hills on the north side, 

 about three miles from the river, whose tops were covered 

 with a Pitch Pine. This is the first Pine we have seen on 

 the Missouri ; it is like that of Virginia (which Dr. Coues 

 calls Pinus rigida), except that the leaves are somewhat 

 longer. " This new Pine was Pinus ponderosa ; and on May 

 21st (i., 318) the country was found "broken and crowned 

 with some Pine and dwarf Cedar ; the leaf of the Pine is 

 longer than that of the common Pitch or Red Pine of Vir- 

 ginia ; the cone is longer and narrower, the imbrications 

 are wider and thicker, and the whole is frequently covered 

 with rosin," a good description of Pinus ponderosa. 



On the Teton River (ii., 356) Captain Clark first noticed 

 a "species of Cottonwood with a leaf like that of a Wild 

 Cherry." This, as Dr. Coues points out, is the narrow- 

 leaved Cottonwood of the Rocky Mountain region, Populus 

 angustifolia, here first noticed, although it was not techni- 

 cally described until 1823, after its discovery in the southern 

 Rocky Mountains by Long's expedition to Colorado. It 

 was well described, however, by Lewis and Clark (ii., 364) in 

 their entry of June 12th, when they found it mixed with the 

 broad-leaved Cottonwood, which up to this time had 

 formed the principal timber which they had seen on the 

 banks of the Missouri River. 



On July 19th, being in the basin of the Dearborn River 

 and ascending the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, 

 the travelers found (ii., 424) that "the Pine-trees had been 

 stripped of their bark about the same season, which our 

 Indian woman says her countrymen do in order to obtain 

 the sap and the soft parts of the wood and bark for food." 

 This Pine-tree is probably Pinus ponderosa, as it is the bark 

 of this species which was most generally eaten in time of 

 famine by the Indians of the west. On the same day were 

 seen on the mountains (ii.,425) " little copses of Pine, Cedar 

 and Balsam Fir." The Balsam Fir is rightly referred to 

 Abies subalpina or lasiocarpa by Dr. Coues. This is the 

 first mention of the alpine Balsam Fir of the interior north- 

 western region of the continent, with a range extending 

 from Alaska to the Cascade Mountains in southern Oregon, 

 Colorado and northern Arizona, unless this species was 

 one of the Balsams noticed by Mackenzie some years 

 earlier in British Columbia. 



On August 3d, the party now being on the Jefferson 

 River, a small species of Birch (ii., 457) was noticed among 

 the shrubs bordering the stream, and described as having 

 " a finely indented oval leaf of small size and deep green 

 color ; the stem is simple, ascending and branching, and sel- 

 dom rises higherthan the ten or twelve feet." This i? the first 

 account of Betula occidentalis, although the western Birch 

 was not described technically until 1839. The mountains 

 at this place are described as " high on each side of the 

 valley, but their only covering is a small species of Pitch 

 Pine with a short leaf, growing on the lower and middle 

 regions, while for some distance below the snowy tops 

 there is neither timber nor herbage of any kind." This 

 Pine is considered by Dr. Coues to be Pinus flexilis, the 

 Rocky Mountain White Pine, but this species could never 

 have been mistaken for one of the Pitch Pines, and our 



