Early Botanical Explorers 
on the Pacific Coast 
and the Trees They Found There 
The Earliest Botanical Specimens 
from the New World 
Long before anything was known of the flora of the Northwest 
Coast of North America, plants useful to man had been intro¬ 
duced from South America into the gardens of Europe by the 
Spanish explorers and conquerors. Columbus was the first, for 
when he returned to Spain in 1492, after his famous discovery of 
a new world, he brought back seeds which had been given to him 
by an Indian who called them “maize.” Since the Spanish and 
Portuguese were the greatest navigators of that time, Indian corn 
was early distributed to remote parts of the known world, and 
because of its wide distribution its American origin has been 
doubted. 1 When he returned to England in 1580 from his voyage 
around the world, Francis Drake also brought back plants which 
were named and some of them illustrated by Clusius 2 in Atrobatis 
Exoticorum in 1605. The flora of the Eastern United States had 
also become known, many species having been described by Lin¬ 
naeus. 3 
23 
