ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS - Brit - Botanical Research ...

234 INTRODUCTION/HISTORY OF BOTANY IN TEXAS
it is thought that Berlandier may have been the
first botanist to collect in East Texas. Further,
Berlandier’s journal from that trip contains
what may be the first written record of the
Texas bluebonnet (Andrews 1986). He noted,
“A lupine [Texas bluebonnet], verbena, delphinium,
some lilies, and a great many evening primroses
contrasted with the tender green of the
grasses, from which sprang flowers of various
colors.” In addition, he apparently made the first
collection of the species that would eventually
be named Lupinus texensis, one of the six Lupinus
species which are the state flowers of Texas
(Andrews 1986; Turner & Andrews 1986).
Thousands of his collections were sent to the
famous botanist Alphonse de Candolle of Geneva,
Switzerland (Reveal & Pringle 1993), who described
many as new to science. Berlandier is
immortalized in many scientific names, including
FIG. the genus Berlandiera, greeneyes, a composite
134/THOMAS DRUMMOND (1780–1835). FIGURE COURTESY
OF HUNT INSTITUTE FOR BOTANICAL DOCUMENTATION, CARNEGIE genus of four species native to the southern
MELLON UNIVERSITY, PITTSBURGH, PA.USED WITH PERMISSION OF United States and Mexico. A two volume transla-
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS,KEW,ENGLAND,UK.
tion of his journal has been published (Berlandier
1980), as have his important early observations
on Native Americans—The Indians of Texas in 1830 (Berlandier 1969). Despite Berlandier’s botanical
importance, no portrait, drawing, or sketch of him is known (Geiser 1948a).
Another early plant collector was Thomas Drummond (1780–1835), a Scottish botanist
and naturalist who came to Texas in 1833 (Fig. 134). While in the area for only a brief period
(1833–1834), he made important collections in southeast Texas and stimulated such later
collectors as Lindheimer and Wright (discussed below). Drummond’s were the first Texas collections
that were widely distributed to museums and herbaria, with many of them going to
Sir William Jackson Hooker in London (Geiser 1948a; Reveal & Pringle 1993). While many
Texas plants are named for him, perhaps none is better known than Phlox drummondii, commonly
known as Drummond’s phlox or pride-of-Texas. Also of note is that it was from several of
Drummond’s collections that W.J. Hooker described both Lupinus subcarnosus and Lupinus texensis
(Hooker 1836; Turner & Andrews 1986).
A final early collector, Melines Conkling Leavenworth (1796–1862), an army surgeon and
another pioneer naturalist, collected in East Texas in 1835. He is commemorated by names including
Carex leavenworthii, Leavenworth’s caric sedge, Eryngium leavenworthii, Leavenworth’s eryngo, and
the genus Leavenworthia (Brassicaceae), gladecress.
DURING REPUBLIC OF TEXAS TIMES AND EARLY STATEHOOD / 1836–1890S
While not chronologically the first collector in the state, Ferdinand Jakob Lindheimer
(1801–1879), a German-born and educated collector, is often referred to as the “father of Texas
botany” because of his important botanical contributions, particularly to the knowledge of the
central Texas flora (Fig. 135). Lindheimer’s botanical work in the state, supported in part by
George Engelmann (German-born botanist and physician of St. Louis; Fig. 136) and Asa Gray
(the pre-eminent Harvard botanist sometimes referred to as the “Patriarch” of American botany;
Fig. 137), spanned the years from 1836 to 1879 (Geiser 1948a; Hatter 1991; Reveal & Pringle 1993).
Lindheimer’s collections were widely distributed by Engelmann and Gray under the title “Flora Texana
Exsiccata” (Blankinship 1907; Boensch 2000), and numerous new species were described in the