collections housed in the Patent Office, including those 

 gathered by the Expedition. In August 1843, Captain Wilkes 

 was placed in charge of the artifacts collected by the 

 Expedition, which were placed on public display in the 

 upper hall of the Patent Office. Brackenridge remained in 

 charge of the botanical specimens. 28 



Many of the plants collected by the Wilkes Expedition, 

 however, were never included within the greenhouse 

 collection. Many of the plants that had been sent home 

 during the course of the Expedition, as Brackenridge noted 

 in his report, were either stolen or lost at sea. Others arrived 

 in poor and unrevivable condition. In several instances, 

 shipments of plants and other items were first sent to the 

 Peale Museum, in Philadelphia, before being forwarded to 

 Washington. 29 



As a consequence, it is reasonable to assume that most 

 of the surviving plants arrived with the Expedition in 1842. 

 These plants, as Wilkes explains in his Autobiography, "were 

 transported in Loddiges cases which afforded full protec- 

 tion to them whilst passing through the various zones we 

 necessarily had to go through." 30 



Even after the plants had actually arrived in Washing- 

 ton, there were still numerous challenges and annoyances 

 associated with their preservation. "No sooner had it become 

 known that the Government had a greenhouse," Wilkes 

 wrote, than requests for flowers and plants became of such 

 a magnitude that if they had "been acceded to, in a very 

 short time we should not have had a plant remaining." 31 



To obviate this problem, Wilkes instructed Brackenridge 

 to refuse all requests for flowers and plants and to use his 

 name as rationale. "In several instances Senators and 

 Members of Congress," according to Wilkes, "became quite 



28 Ibid, See also MacHatton, Heritage of the Navy, p. 968; and Morgan, 

 Autobiography of Charles Wilkes, pp. 527-529. 



29 "After a while," as Wilkes points out in his Autobiography, "there were 

 plants discovered in the United States which were known" to have been 

 sent home by the Expedition. But in most instances he was unable to 

 convince the individuals who had obtained them to return them. Morgan, 

 Autobiography of Charles Wilkes, p. 530. 



30 Ibid., p. 582. 



31 Ibid., p. 529. 



