Early Botanical Explorers on the Pacific Coast 27 
collected and reported as smoked by the Indians. At the Royal 
Herbarium at Kew is a specimen consisting of some root leaves 
which differ in shape from any of the native species of North 
America. In the Herbarium of the British Museum is a specimen 
collected by Captain George Dixon, from Queen Charlotte 
Island, as Indian Tobacco. It is badly mutilated by insects and 
consists of the upper flowering part of a stem. The only perfect 
leaf resembles those of Menzies’ specimen, and the only good 
flower differs from the flowers of all other native tobaccos. As 
Menzies was on Queen Charlotte Island when Captain Dixon 
was there (on a previous voyage with Captain Colnett), I feel 
convinced that the two specimens represent a still-unnamed Nico- 
tianaP 
Vancouver was not always fair to Menzies. The man who was 
supposed to care for the living plants which Menzies had in a 
glass case Vancouver assigned to other duties j and on the second 
visit to San Francisco when the expedition was not so hospitably 
received, he would not allow Menzies to leave the boat. After 
their return to England he demanded that Menzies deliver his 
journal to him, but Menzies refused and referred him to the 
officials of the British Museum who were the real owners. 
Karl Heinrich Mertens was born in Germany and was well 
educated, especially in botany, for his father (Franz Karl Mer¬ 
tens) was a well-known botanist in whose honor the genus Mer- 
tensia is named. He was keen to explore and tried to join the 
Kotzebue expedition but failed. Later he joined another under 
Captain Feodor P. Liitke. Among the places visited was the island 
of Sitka. From Mertens’ Sitka collections Bongard wrote his 
