The First Survey (1837–1840), Douglass Houghton, and Michigan’s Flora in 1840

The Dawn of Botanical Exploration in Michigan

Knowledge of Michigan’s flora was essential to the Indigenous Peoples. Everywhere, they depended on useful species of plants for food, medicine, shelter, and other important aspects of their livelihood and, in the Lower Peninsula especially, they had deep knowledge of agriculture. They knew and named useful wild plants and had their own well-developed land stewardship traditions. This knowledge still exists, but it is an unfortunate truth that the science elaborated here does not build on these traditions but is separate from them. See Kimmerer (2013) for an elegant discussion of Indigenous scientific knowledge.

Since this review primarily concerns herbarium specimens, we must begin with Thomas Nuttall’s visit in 1810 (Voss 1956). The early European visitors to Michigan that pre-dated Nuttall certainly included naturalists and keen observers. They left anecdotes about the plants and vegetation framed in European traditions. Some gathered seeds and fruits bound for European gardens and materials to be studied for medicinal properties. However, they provided no documentation of the kind utilized herein, namely the herbarium specimens that provide a direct link to the explorations, allow confirmation of identifications, and lay the foundations for a scientific examination of the Michigan flora. Voss (1978) provides a brief overview of some of these early travelers.

The very earliest plant explorers in Michigan whose goal was to scientifically survey the natural history in the European scientific tradition, including collecting plant specimens for herbaria and giving plants Latin names, did their pioneering work under difficult conditions and left few specimens for posterity, as noted by McVaugh (1970). Especially during the earliest exploring expeditions, traveling in open canoes made for substantial difficulties in drying plants and keeping them dry. Only one collection from before 1820 has survived and only a few dozen from before 1830, most from botanists who were early residents. The contributions of all these people, including biographical information, are listed below, roughly chronologically. The First Survey, which provided by far the largest number of early collections, is treated last and in the most depth. Scientists that visited Michigan but did not leave a legacy of collections are briefly mentioned if they played an important role in facilitating the work of other botanists.

There were no botanical institutions or herbaria in Michigan until after 1840, and the earliest collectors had few books on which to rely for determining their plants. The wealth of state and regional floras, local lists, and field guides were far in the future, and just a few larger scale and very general texts existed. Flora Boreali-Americana by André Michaux (1803) was an early reference, and Douglas (1914) noted having in the pocket of his jacket when it was stolen “a copy of Persoon’s Synopsis Plantarum“ (Persoon 1805–1807). Frederick Pursh’s Flora Americae Septentrionalis (Pursh 1814) was certainly utilized. Thomas Nuttall’s Genera (Nuttall 1818) was an obvious reference for Michigan, given Nuttall’s visit in 1810. The first edition (of many) of Eaton’s Manual was printed in 1817 (Eaton 1817) and provided an inexpensive flora in English rather than the Latin that was usual at the time. In a letter to John Torrey dated March 20, 1832 (New York Botanical Garden archives), Houghton noted that he used the fifth edition of Eaton’s Manual (Eaton 1929a) in naming his plants from the first Schoolcraft Expedition. McVaugh (1970) noted finding an 1838 Viola collection in “Houghton’s copy of Beck’s Botany“ (Beck 1833) and that, besides his own knowledge, John Wright would have used Beck’s Botany and the seventh edition of Eaton’s Manual (Eaton 1836) during the First Survey. Near the end of this period, some additional reference materials would have been available, including some, like volume one of John Torrey and Asa Gray’s Flora of North America (Torrey and Gray 1838–1840) that utilized specimens from some of the Michigan collectors noted herein. None of the botanists noted below mentioned utilizing Hooker’s famous Flora Boreali-Americana (Hooker 1829–1840) during their Michigan work, perhaps not surprisingly, as this was not long after the war of 1812, and Hooker’s flora did concern itself with “British America.” However, records for “Canada” in Eaton and Wright (1840) presumably came from Flora Boreali-Americana, as Eaton’s preface (Eaton and Wright 1840) notes that Wright incorporated information from various works, including Hooker. All these books, even Eaton’s popular Manual, were hardly handy identification tools. They did not have keys; rather, they organized plants in groups by floral morphology to facilitate matching the plant in hand to the concise descriptions.

One additional reference that early collectors and botanists utilized were their personal herbarium collections. In Douglass Houghton’s case, his personal herbarium bound in seven volumes³ (Figure 2) contained many hundreds of plants, mostly, however from his time at the Rensselaer School in Troy, New York (now Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). These would have offered a convenient, personalized reference of named plant specimens, somewhat like an illustrated flora. Most of the resident collectors discussed below, however, did not bind their private herbaria into books, probably impairing the chances of their specimens’ survival. These herbaria were vital working resources for the collectors during this era of sparse and cumbersome reference books. Herbaria were useful both in aiding plant identification and for exchanging specimens to disseminate and standardize knowledge about plants, purposes herbaria fulfill even in the present day.

Figure 2.

Houghton’s seven personal herbarium volumes, one volume open to a specimen of Lonicera hirsuta collected at Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County, June 1831; with Houghton’s label enlarged as an inset on the left leaf. The identification by Houghton is written on the other side of the label, to be visible when the label is folded into the volume. Photo by the author.

Nevertheless, after using the few resources available to them, it was not always possible to confirm tentative or uncertain identifications. Though the University of Michigan officially traces its founding to 1817, it did not exist as an academic institution in the modern sense until after 1840. The earliest botanical explorers especially (except for Thomas Nuttall) relied on sending specimens to authorities in the eastern United States for accurate determinations of their Michigan plants. As the preeminent botanist in the United States in the early 1800s, John Torrey (August 15, 1796–March 10, 1873), then at Columbia College, New York (now Columbia University), figured large in early Michigan botany. He was the primary authority for confirming the identifications of collections made by the exploring expeditions and by a number of the earliest resident collectors. Specimens were also sent to Amos Eaton (May 17, 1776–May 10, 1842) at the Rensselaer School for incorporation of the records into the various editions of his Manual and, for sedges in the huge genus Carex, Chester Dewey (October 25, 1784–December 15, 1867), then at Williams College, Massachusetts. Nearer to 1840, collections were sent to Asa Gray, then professor of Botany at the University of Michigan (though he only once, briefly, visited Michigan). Thus, except for some collectors who resided in the state, like Dennis Cooley or Douglass Houghton, the very earliest collections are mostly housed in out-of-state herbaria in the eastern US. Sending collections to botanical authorities in the East in exchange for determinations, of course, also increased the representation of Michigan’s flora in the larger scale works that these botanical authors were pursuing. Much is known about these famous early botanical luminaries in the eastern United States, and there is thus no need for biographical digressions about them.

After Nuttall’s visit in 1810, exploring expeditions, like the Cass Expedition in 1820 and especially the two Schoolcraft Expeditions in 1831 and 1832, played a significant role in advancing documentation of Michigan’s flora in the early 1800s, especially for the Upper Peninsula. A pivotal Michigan figure here, though not a botanist, was the renowned Michigan author, anthropologist, and lecturer, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (March 28, 1793–December 10, 1864). Schoolcraft was educated at Vermont’s Middlebury College and served as geographer and geologist on the Cass Expedition, on which David Bates Douglass was responsible for all other sciences, including botany. Schoolcraft was clearly impressed with the need to document natural history on these expeditions and Michigan botany was fortunate that he hired Douglass Houghton as doctor and botanist for the two later expeditions to the source of the Mississippi River that he headed. This cemented Houghton’s reputation as a botanist. Schoolcraft also played an important role as an advocate for science while a regent of the University of Michigan from 1837–1840, during the time the First Survey’s botanical section existed (Hinsdale 1906).

In the early 1800s, the geographical focus of Michigan was rather different, in particular for the very earliest collectors active before the mid-1830s. Michigan was centered not on Detroit and the interior south, but on Michilimackinak (Mackinac Island) and Sault Ste. Marie, the gateways to Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and the vast Northwest. Both were stopping places for early collectors, and much of the earliest plant collecting was in the north, mostly very near the shores of the Great Lakes, rather than in the floristically richer landscapes of southern Michigan. The period up to 1840 also captures the shift in plant exploration from the shores of the upper Great Lakes early on to the flora of Michigan’s interior later in the 1830s. The starting point for the scientific study of Michigan floristics, however, must date from 1837 with the establishment of the First Survey and plant collecting with the goal of documenting the complete flora. Collections before this time, while very interesting, were not only sparse but mostly a sidelight to other endeavors.

A final cautionary note is that the Michigan Territory of the early 1800s, until shortly before Michigan became a state in 1937, included not just the presentday state, but also varying amounts of present-day Wisconsin and Minnesota (see, for example, the 1823 map reproduced in Voss 1978). Therefore, localities given as “Michigan Territory” must be interpreted with care—after making sure that the abbreviation “M. T.” does not refer to Montana Territory!

The First Citizen Scientists

Plant collections by botanists and other scientists visiting from afar, like Thomas Nuttall and David Bates Douglass, were significant because they were very early. However, as McVaugh (1970) noted, their collections were made under difficult circumstances and thus were never very numerous and did not play a pivotal role in the understanding of our flora. This, of course, meant that the great luminaries of botany in the early 1800s, Amos Eaton, John Torrey, and Asa Gray, worked with very limited knowledge of even the eastern North American flora, much less that of Michigan. To remedy this, they cultivated a network of interested citizens, usually doctors, who would have had botanical training, to help fill gaps in their knowledge. The breadth of documentation needed to establish the diversity and distribution of plants in eastern North America was staggering but made researching floras an ideal setting where individuals could contribute important data and documentation. Some of these contributors were visitors to Michigan, like Nathan Folwell. However, especially after the early 1830s, resident botanists played an increasingly ascendant role. Medical botanists especially, like Dennis Cooley, Daniel Clarke, Douglass Houghton, Edwin James, Zina Pitcher, Abram Sager, and John Wright, who all resided in Michigan, at least while making their collections, were critical in the early documenting of the Michigan flora. Some of these resident collectors were scientific professionals in their own right, including Houghton, Sager, and Wright, but for most, botany was an avocation, though linked to the botanical training that they had as part of obtaining their medical degree (Youngken 1956).

These resident Michigan collectors were a small botanical community, the members of which often had similar backgrounds, knew and helped each other, and knew the important botanists in the East at the time. The central figure in Michigan was certainly Douglass Houghton, who, through his travels in the north and his connections with the University of Michigan, interacted with them all. Houghton credited Edwin James with helping him identify his plants from the first Schoolcraft Expedition: “At the Sault Ste. Marie, by the aid of Dr. James of the U. S. Army, I was enabled to solve some of my difficulties, the others I shall not attempt until enabled to procure suitable works to do so” (Letter to John Torrey dated March 20, 1832, New York Botanical Garden archives). James also gave Houghton seeds of plants he collected in the Rocky Mountains (label note on MICH 1505386, Euphorbia marginata, snow-on-the-mountain, grown by Houghton from seed sent by James). Houghton contributed plants to Pitcher’s herbarium, worked with the botanists of the First Survey, Abram Sager, John Wright, and George H. Bull, and knew Mary H. Clark (Voss 1978) and surely also Dennis Cooley. Their collections, especially those from the late 1830s, are more often housed at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University Herbarium (MSC) herbaria. These collectors were pioneering citizen scientists long before that term was invented, documenting the flora of their region and contributing specimens and records to researchers working on larger projects like those of Dewey, Eaton, Gray, and Torrey.

Amos Eaton and the Troy Connection

An important connection linking many of the early Michigan medical botanists is the central role played by the famous educator and botanist Amos Eaton. Both Zina Pitcher and Edwin James, graduates of Middlebury College (like Henry Rowe Schoolcraft), were protégés of Eaton through attending some of Eaton’s many lectures in New England and New York (see notes under their names). Eaton was a popular and dynamic lecturer who generated great enthusiasm for botany. As quaintly put in the late 1800s (Ballard 1897), he could “ring the rising bell in the dormitory of the soul.” Eaton was also progressive in encouraging women to attend his public lectures and apparently some of his school lectures (Rudolph 1996). The impact of Eaton’s lectures in driving the flourishing of natural history studies at this time was well stated by the Carex monographer, Chester Dewey (1866), when writing the introduction to the index and final article of his 42 year odyssey monographing Carex: “It was begun in 1824, only 7 years after the great impulse, produced by the lectures of Professor Amos Eaton, to the study of botany and some other branches of natural history.”

The connection between the First Survey of Michigan and Troy, New York, through the Rensselaer School and Amos Eaton, was even more direct. The primary scientists Douglass Houghton, Abram Sager, and John Wright were all students of Eaton at the Rensselaer School (Nason 1887), founded in 1824 by Eaton and Stephen van Rensselaer III (Ricketts 1914). George H. Bull, Wright’s and then Houghton’s assistant in 1838 and 1839 respectively, was from an important Troy family (Scully 1952) and doubtless attended some of Eaton’s public lectures. The connection of these early Michigan medical botanists to Eaton was particularly formative. At the time, botany was a major part of training in medicine, a situation that continued until well into the 20th century (Youngken 1956). However, in addition to training students in plants for medicinal purposes, Eaton instilled in them an interest in botany for its own sake. He was far ahead of his time in teaching botany. He not only had people learn to identify plants, but also to learn something about their significance in the vegetation. Thus, Eaton provided training not only in systematics but also in ecology. Especially unusual for his era, Eaton used field trips as a laboratory for instruction (Rudolph 1996), providing his students that later worked on the First Survey with the ideal skills for their pioneering work. This field experience clearly had an impact. Houghton’s specimen labels from his time at Troy repeatedly denote an obviously favorite wetland site as “Botany Pond.” Even more remarkably, Eaton, in 1826, and repeated in 1830, had a large scale “Rensselaer School Flotilla” that took students on an extended natural history trip through field sites throughout New York, utilizing the recently finished Erie Canal (McAllister 1941, Rezneck 1959). Houghton’s 1830 herbarium labels for New York reflect places listed for the “Flotilla” program, such as West Point, Trenton Falls, the Cayuga Marshes, Salina, and Lockport. This field excursion was similar to some modern field course programs. Eaton’s courses gave the young Houghton especially excellent preparation for his botanically oriented duties on expeditions in Michigan and the Great Lakes region. A trove of information about Eaton is available in McAllister (1941).

Unfortunately, as noted by Voss (1956), Eaton, who “was primarily interested in teaching and popularizing botany, preserved at most only small scraps of specimens.” Merrill and Reeder (1946) discussed Eaton’s specimens (or rather, lack thereof) in some detail. Eaton may be forgiven, however, as he was largely responsible for Douglass Houghton coming to Michigan.

A final sidelight is that Amos Eaton was also the young John Torrey’s botanical inspiration under the most unusual of circumstances. While Torrey’s father was the fiscal agent for the prison in which Eaton was jailed for forgery from 1810 to 1815 (Rodgers 1942), he brought young John in to be tutored by the prisoner! This was a source of some pride for Eaton, who noted (Eaton 1836): “I taught our modern Linneus [i.e., John Torrey] the very name of calyx, corol and stamen, at his early age of fourteen.” It was certainly a different world!

It is particularly fitting that this review end in 1840, the year of publication of the eighth and last edition of Eaton’s Manual, the product of the collaboration between John Wright and Eaton, with proofreading and indexing help from George Bull. While the numerous editions of Eaton’s Manual have been criticized for their lack of documentation and cryptic format (Merrill and Reeder 1946), the eighth edition (Eaton and Wright 1840), with Wright’s records from the First Survey, has unusually complete documentation for Michigan. This edition was the culmination of Eaton’s (and Wright’s) contributions to science. It was also essentially the end of cumbersome manuals that, like his, combined botany and medicine. They were soon to be superseded for eastern North America by the fresh new botany-oriented format of Gray’s Manual, the first edition coming out in 1848 (Gray 1848). Nevertheless, the eighth edition of Eaton’s Manual stands as the first flora to have a comprehensive record of Michigan’s vascular plants. Though he never visited Michigan, Amos Eaton was the godfather of both the First Survey and of Michigan botany generally.

The Scope of This Review

This review explores four thrusts in more detail. The first, in Part One, presents information about all early plant collectors and their collections up to 1840, with biographical information, discussions of each collector’s localities as appropriate, and sometimes lists of known collections when these are few. Douglass Houghton and collectors working for him on the First Survey have their more expansive collecting expeditions detailed in Part Two, rather than as part of their biographical sketches. This review augments Ed Voss’s Botanical beachcombers and explorers, which provides a thorough review of the botanical exploration of the upper Great Lakes in the nineteenth century (Voss 1978) but is restricted to Michigan. However, the focus here is on collectors, their collections, their collection localities, and the significance of their collections for the flora and ecology of Michigan, as opposed to delving into biographical details, institutions, positions held, personal views, and broader contributions of the people, as Voss (1978) did. This leaves ample scope for further historical research. This treatment will additionally serve to satisfy the curiosity of botanists who need to interpret a cryptic label or wonder who the collector was. An important element is presenting more information about John Wright and especially George H. Bull to ensure their proper recognition as trailblazing Michigan botanists. Some relevant contextual information such as correspondents to whom early collectors sent collections for determinations, is also briefly noted. Occasional collections made by the botanists noted below, while trespassing slightly into Ontario, are listed to supplement the information in Pringle (1989), as these represent very early herbarium specimens from Canada (this is also done in Part Two for the few Canadian collections made by the Schoolcraft Expeditions and the First Survey). Common names are included with the first use of the scientific name in Part One.

The second thrust, in Part Two, documents, with itineraries, the two Schoolcraft Expeditions on which Douglass Houghton collected plants and the First Survey botany field parties under Houghton’s direction. These expeditions and field parties were responsible for the vast majority of the early collections. The notes and the itineraries constructed here will also provide a guide to placing additional collections that may be discovered and allow augmentation of their meager labels as holdings in large herbaria with rich historical collections are fully digitized and become more readily available. Perhaps somebody will repeat the trips someday.

The third thrust, in Part Three, explores, insofar as feasible, the ecological, phytogeographic, and floristic information that these early collections can provide. The ecological portion primarily utilizes collections made by the First Survey, as these collections were meant to represent the flora comprehensively and have numerous extant specimens and their label data, though brief, often have habitats that were compiled by scientists in a consistent manner. The focus is especially on topics relevant to the present, including rare species, non-native species, and species of plant communities now greatly reduced or essentially extirpated in Michigan, such as prairie and savanna.

The fourth thrust, in Part Four, reviews early publications about the Michigan flora, especially John Wright’s 1839 list and the Eaton & Wright Manual and assesses how collections, especially those by the First Survey, came to reside in the University of Michigan Herbarium, and other herbaria. Linked to this is a brief examination of the proportion of the collections that have survived to the present. Finally, a list of the Michigan flora with specimen citations (ca. 1600) and reliable reports through 1840 is included as Appendix 1. This is largely based on First Survey collections, but includes a few additional early collections and reports. All specimens examined are cited, along with reliable reports. Limited notes are included for larger plant families comparing this list with the modern flora as, of course, a number of uncommon native species were not yet discovered, and most non-native species had not yet arrived in Michigan. As follow up to the last point, the year of the first known collection is noted for all species discovered after 1840.

The Beginning: Thomas Nuttall (January 5, 1786–September 10, 1859)

To Thomas Nuttall we owe the first plant collecting expedition into Michigan (and beyond into the northwest), in 1810, though sadly, few collections survive from the Great Lakes region and apparently only one from Michigan (Stuckey 1967). Much information is available about Nuttall, as he was the first, and one of the most famous, of the early plant explorers to collect in Michigan. Great detail is presented in Graustein (1967) and summarized in Voss (1956, 1978). In brief, Nuttall arrived in Detroit on June 26 and spent time in the vicinity exploring and collecting plants, though no collections have survived. He left Detroit July 29, bound for Mackinac Island in Lake Huron, where he arrived August 12. He was there only a few days when he was able to join a party from the Pacific Fur Company and left for Green Bay and then parts far to the west, never to return to Michigan.

Nuttall is best known in Michigan for his discoveries on Mackinac Island and the nearby islands and shores in the vicinity of the Straits of Mackinac which divide Lake Huron from Lake Michigan, popularly known as the Straits region. Here, Nuttall discovered for the first time three species for which the flora of the upper Great Lakes region is famous: the Great Lakes endemic Iris lacustris (dwarf lake iris), the western disjunct Rubus parviflorus (thimbleberry), and the circumpolar disjunct, Tanacetum bipinnatum subsp. huronense (Lake Huron tansy). These three, representing three different phytogeographical elements contributing to the richness of the upper Great Lakes flora, were the cover images of the three Michigan Flora volumes (Voss 1972, 1985, 1996). Voss (1956) and Stuckey (1967) comment on other plants Nuttall discovered here for the first time, including Platanthera huronensis (Lake Huron green orchid), and Anticlea elegans (white camas). Nuttall also provided a few puzzles not commented on by Voss (1956). He noted the very distinctive Hordeum jubatum (squirrel-tail grass), traditionally considered as introduced to Michigan: “On the calcareous Islands of Lake Huron and Michigan.” (Nuttall 1818). Surely, he could not have been mistaken. Perhaps it is native. On the other hand, is there a possibility it was early introduced in the bedding and clothing of travelers coming back from the West, who almost all passed through there at this time? Similarly, Nuttall (1818) noted Artemisia annua?: “On the island of Michilimakinak.” Now little known in Michigan, was this very fragrant Old World medicinal herb, sweet wormwood or sweet Annie, grown by Europeans at the fort and already escaped?

Though he could only have explored near the shores during his brief few-days visit, Nuttall was clearly impressed with the flora, such as the amount of Linnaea borealis (twinflower) “abundant in the shady pine forests of Lake Huron.” He noted that the leaves of Petasites frigidus (sweet-coltsfoot) “on the islands of Lake Huron near Michilimackinak…considerably resemble those of Podophyllum peltatum [may-apple].“ For Polygonum articulatum (jointweed) on the shores of Lake Michigan, he noted “A very elegant species with spreading rosaceous flowers, sometimes white” (Figure 3). He must have been even more impressed with Primula mistassinica (bird’s-eye primrose), “On the calcareous gravelly shores of the islands of Lake Huron; around Michilimackinak, Bois Blanc, and St. Helena, in the outlet of Lake Michigan: abundant.” This extensive notice was despite the fact that he was there too late in the year see it in flower.

Figure 3.

Polygonum articulatum on the northern shores of Lake Michigan, where seen by Thomas Nuttall in 1810. Photo by the author at Sturgeon Bay Dunes, Emmet County, Michigan, September 16, 2008.

Nuttall’s pioneering explorations in North America resulted in the publication of one of the earliest botanical works published in the United States, his famous two volume The Genera of North American Plants, and a Catalogue of the Species, to the Year 1817, published in Philadelphia in 1818 and based largely on his own extensive field work. Voss (1956) presented a detailed review of his visit to the Straits region, which accounts for many of the plants specifically mentioned by Nuttall (1818) from Michigan, all together only 28 species. Most localities are general, such as “shores of Lake Huron,” and “Islands of Lake Huron and Michigan.” From the specific localities mentioned, Nuttall visited Bois Blanc, Mackinac, and St. Helena Islands, though he doubtless stopped at mainland sites as well. Sadly, virtually all Nuttall’s plants collected in Michigan in 1810 were lost. Only a piece of Rubus parviflorus, noted by Nuttall (1818) as occurring “On the island of Michilimackinak, Lake Huron,” survives in the Herbarium of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences (PH) (Figure 4) as the earliest known plant collection from Michigan (Stuckey 1967). The specimen has the note: “Lost all but this fragment.” None of the many plants named to commemorate Nuttall were based on Michigan collections.

Figure 4.

Rubus parviflorus gathered by Thomas Nuttall August 12–15, 1810 on Mackinac Island, Mackinac County. The only surviving Nuttall specimen from Michigan, and the oldest herbarium specimen known from the State. Photo by the author.

David Bates Douglass (March 21, 1790–October 21, 1849) and the 1820 Cass Expedition

Captain David Bates Douglass made the next Michigan collections in 1820, when Douglass was a member of the Cass Expedition. The expedition was organized by Michigan’s Territorial Governor Lewis Cass to survey the western part of Michigan Territory, particularly “to explore more thoroughly the Lake Superior and Upper Mississippi region” especially to “provide for frontier defense, enhance and promote fur trade, and gain a more detailed knowledge of the region with respect to topography, mineral deposits, and natural resources” (Stuckey 1978a).

At the time, Douglass, a civil engineer, was assistant professor of Natural Philosophy in the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was not a botanist; his primary responsibilities were to prepare a map and serve as the scientist in all matters except mineralogy and geology, these being the purview of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. Schoolcraft (1821) wrote a lengthy travel narrative of the expedition, and, with his title including “…to the sources of the Mississippi River,” added the mystique of the unknown and a goal that was perhaps more important to Schoolcraft than to Cass or to Douglass. The expedition, however, did not quite reach the source of the Mississippi (Mason 1958).

Douglass notes, in an explanatory letter published by Torrey (1822): “I must beg leave to observe, in the first place that the collection of plants was made by a person, who, besides not being a professed botanist, was almost constantly engaged with other objects of research.” Unlike Nuttall 10 years earlier, Douglass did not find the flora especially captivating, noting: “The region of country traversed by the expedition, particularly that bordering upon Lake Superior…and around Lake Michigan is but indifferently rich in plants at best.” Douglass did collect Primula mistassinica, seemingly a source of fascination for all early botanical explorers. Linnaea borealis at Whitefish Point caught his attention, as the mats would have been in spectacular full bloom when he visited on June 19 (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Mat of Linnaea borealis on Whitefish Point, Chippewa County, June 24, 2024, 204 years after David Bates Douglass collected it there June 19, 1820. Photo by the author.

Only modest numbers of collections were made and fewer survive; as Douglass also noted in his letter to Torrey (quoted in Torrey 1822), “a part of the collection was injured by an accident on the Ouisconsin, in which my canoe was very nearly filled with water before it could be got ashore. The consequence of which was that nearly all the plants in one case were completely spoiled before I was able to dry them.” Douglass’s collections were nevertheless interesting as, besides being very early, they were the foundation for the first scientific journal article, by Torrey (1822), concerned in substantial part with the flora of what was to become Michigan. The few Douglass collections from Michigan discovered to date are at the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium (NY) or PH and are listed in Table 1.

For context, and to aid in placing additional collections that may be discovered, Douglass’s itinerary, in brief, is as follows, extracted from Schoolcraft (1821) and reprinted in Schoolcraft (1855). Douglass traveled from New York in the spring, arriving at Detroit late on May 8, 1820. He stayed in Detroit for some time, collecting plants in the area, and the expedition set out May 24. They entered Lake Huron, leaving Fort Gratiot (now Port Huron) May 28, passed Point Aux Barques June 1, and Presque Isle June 5, finally reaching Mackinac Island on June 6. There, they stayed 6 days, leaving June 13 for Sault Ste. Marie, reaching there before sunset on June 14. Leaving Sault Ste. Marie on June 17, they camped for the night at Point Aux Pins (Algoma District, Ontario) and entered Lake Superior on June 18, attaining the mouth of the Shelldrake River. The next day, passing Whitefish Point, the expedition, forced to land by bad weather, camped a short ways beyond. On June 20 the expedition left their camp, passed Grand Marais and the Grand Sable Dunes, and camped a short distance to the west. On June 21 they passed the Pictured Rocks and camped at Grand Island, on June 22 they camped at Granite Point, and on June 23 they camped at the mouth of the Huron River. They reached the Keweenaw Portage on June 24 and left the other side June 27 to spend the night at the mouth of the Ontonagon River. After traveling upriver to visit the famous Ontonagon Boulder, an immense copper nugget (weighing 1,682 kg!) (Figure 6), now in the Smithsonian Institution (Pantell 1971), they arrived on Lake Superior again on June 30. On July 2, they passed the Montreal River to enter present-day Wisconsin. On their return, they embarked from Green Bay August 22 to Chicago, and then back up the east shore of Lake Michigan, entering Berrien County on September 2, where they camped at the mouth of the Galien River, finally arriving at Mackinac Island September 9, and leaving there September 13 to arrive back in Detroit September 23.

Figure 6.

The Ontonagon River valley in 1820, with the Ontonagon Boulder at the lower right, from Schoolcraft (1821).

Torrey (1822) reports on 113 species from Douglass’s collections, 58 of which were from Michigan, as far as can be discerned. Douglass evidently had relatively few plant collecting stops. Specific Michigan localities reported by Torrey for collections he examined can be organized roughly by the itinerary as follows, with dates from Torrey’s paper: “Gross[e] Isle” or “Gross[e] Isle, Detroit River,” May 18, 21, 22; “Detroit” or “near Detroit,” May 20, 30; “Shores of Lake Huron,” May 10⁴, 28, 30; “Banks of Lake Huron,” June 5; “Presque Isle,” June 5; “Islands of Lake Huron;” “River St. Mary’s;” “Shores of Lake Superior,” June 19; “near Whitefish Point,” June 19; “near Deadman’s River, Lake Superior,” June 26; “Portage of Pt. Keeweenah” or “Point Keeweenah,” June 26; “Ontonagon River,” June 30; and “East shore of Lake Michigan,” September 6.

Of the species in Torrey’s paper, Camassia scilloides (wild-hyacinth), from “Gross Isle” was the sole species not reported by anyone else up to 1840. Our common southern woodland spring wildflower, Cardamine douglassii (pink spring cress), commemorates him, rather than the more famous David Douglas, but the type was collected about Buffalo, New York, not in Michigan (Stuckey 1978a).

David Douglas (June 25, 1799–July 12, 1834)

The renown Scottish plant explorer David Douglas deserves brief mention, if only to note that before his collections of the western North American plants that made him famous, Douglas collected in southwestern Ontario in the vicinity of Amherstburg in 1823, and on “Tuesday, September 23rd. —I made an excursion across the river to the Michigan Territory, at which place I found several species of Liatris, a Smilax of a curious appearance, a species of Elymus [wild rye] very strong in the marshes, Lobelia inflata [wild-tobacco] and syphilitica [great blue lobelia] in wet places; in a dry part of the wood among dead leaves Botrychium, Arum triphyllum [Arisaema triphyllum, jack-in-the-pulpit], Pothos foetidus [Symplocarpus foetidus, skunk-cabbage]. These plants struck me as singular” (Douglas 1914). Besides the forest understory plants noted, the “several species of Liatris” provide the first hint of the diverse lakeplain prairie openings and oak savannas that existed then on both sides of the Detroit River and north to the St. Clair River. His primary goal was the introduction of new plants into Great Britain for horticulture, and no attempt has been made to check on the possibility of a few extant Michigan collections in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh (E), where Douglas’s collections are housed. No plants were named for David Douglas from the Great Lakes region; The names of Michigan native plants commemorating him, such as Crataegus douglasii (black hawthorn) or Poygonum douglasii (western smartweed), were based on western American collections.

Dennis Cooley (February 16, 1787⁵–September 8, 1860)

Dr. Dennis Cooley from Deerfield, Massachusetts, began collecting plants around his home in 1820 and immediately began collecting plants, as well as practicing medicine, after he settled in Macomb County in July 1827. Three collections by Cooley from Detroit are from 1824 and were made on a visit prior to moving to Michigan, perhaps to arrange his move. They are Stachys tenuifolia (smooth hedgenettle) dated July 1 and Thlaspi arvense (penny cress), dated July 5. A collection of Elodea canadensis (common waterweed) dated simply 1824 has the note: “Detroit River.” Other collections by Cooley from before 1827 are mostly from New England, with a few from his stint practicing medicine for 5 years in Georgia before moving to Michigan. Beal (1901a) presents a brief biographical sketch of Cooley. Cooley presumably had some of his medical training at Williams College, since the “Medical College of Berkshire,” in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to which institution Beal credits Cooley’s medical degree, was early on affiliated with Williams College (Dirckamer and Dirckamer 1984, see also Seelye 1906). Chester Dewey was professor there during this time, and it seems likely that Dewey stimulated Cooley’s botanical interests. As Dewey intensively monographed North American Carex over the period 1824–1866, it is surely no coincidence that Cooley did not neglect gathering Carex and sent him many specimens, a number of which were early enough to be cited in the flora list in Appendix 1. Besides being an avid botanist, Cooley (Figure 7) must have been an unusual individual who evidently made quite an impression on the local citizens. As Leeson (1882) notes, “His eccentricities of dress, his flowing unshorn curls, luxuriant and beautiful as a woman’s, gave partial evidence. He was a good physician and rendered invaluable service to the early settlers.”

Figure 7.

Dr. Dennis Cooley, from Beal (1901a).

Cooley’s specimens are significant both because they are relatively numerous and well prepared, and because Michigan collections prior to his were essentially all from near the shores of the Great Lakes, mostly from northern Michigan. His collections are also important as they were made in an agricultural setting and provide some of the first records of alien agricultural weeds. Cooley collected primarily in the southern interior of Michigan, in the vicinity of his home in section 7, Washington Twp., Macomb County and nearby, in adjacent Oakland County, so no itinerary is provided. His collecting sites through 1840, however, are briefly listed in Table 2, with at least the Township given for as many sites as possible. Many collections indicated merely as “Washington,” are from Washington Township, presumably reasonably close to his home. He often referred to localities by the name of the property owner. On labels, he occasionally noted the township and section, making it possible to compile a cumulative gazetteer of collecting localities, as begun by Voss (2005). In Table 2, non-specific modifiers such as “east” and “near” and qualifiers such as (“barn,” “farm,” “land”) are omitted for brevity if no confusion results. Words that are also habitat designations (e.g., “marsh,” “pond”) or that allow more accurate placement (e.g., “highway,” “border”) are included. Locations repeating the township name are generic, located on Cooley’s labels only to the Township. If more precision is available, a section or other data is added in parentheses. Some uncertainty is still present, as some locations, especially Stony Creek and the Townsend pond and marsh, straddled the Macomb-Oakland County line. A few Cooley collections have no specific locality but are presumably from either Macomb or Oakland Counties. His extensive herbarium is at MSC, though he sent specimens to Chester Dewey especially, but also to Asa Gray and John Carey, these now at the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (GH), and to John Torrey, which specimens are at NY. Cooley also collected a number of mosses, but these have not been traced. The table of collecting localities in Table 2 will aid in placing newly discovered specimens and offer a beginning to a fuller treatment of his collections and localities.

After a modest number of collections in the late 1820s, Cooley collected little in the early to mid-1830s, with just a few sheets from the period 1830–1832 and then none until 1837–1840, when he collected a great deal, with more than 100 specimens surviving from these four years. The timing of his collection activity coincident with the First Survey is likely because of communication with Houghton or John Wright. Cooley records were reported in Eaton and Wright (1840).

By the end of 1840, Cooley had made over 140 collections. Notable were first collections of a number of restricted fen species, including the sedges Carex prairea, C. sterilis, and C. tetanica, Gentianopsis virgata (small fringed gentian), Graphephorum melicoides (trisetum), and Valeriana edulis (common valerian), most in what he termed a “marsh” along Stony Creek in Oakland County. He collected Carex crawei “on marl beds” in the “Stony Creek Marsh, Avon.” This small sedge is, within the Great Lakes region, largely confined to calcareous shores of the Great Lakes themselves. Cooley continued to collect through the 1840s and 1850s, with his last collections dated 1858.

Collecting in a more settled part of southeastern Michigan already partly converted to farms, Cooley also provided the first occurrence records of a number of alien plants. The first collection of an alien plant in Michigan was by Cooley, Thlaspi arvense (penny cress), collected in Detroit, July 5, 1824. For Hypericum perforatum (common St. John’s-wort), collected in 1839 “at the S.W. corner of Lazarus Green’s nursery,” he noted “This is the first specimen of this plant that I have seen in Michigan.” He collected the medicinal plant Tussilago farfara (coltsfoot) in 1840, crisply noting “Hab. England — naturalized in America.” Lappula squarrosa (European stickseed) was, in fact, already “too common” when he collected it in 1840.

Cooley’s collecting activities over many years in a local area, his well prepared and labeled collections, and his communication of duplicates to botanists in the east were impressive contributions. He did not neglect aquatics, graminoids, or weeds. He sometimes included interesting and informative notes about the occurrence of species on his labels. His collections and botanical contributions deserve a comprehensive treatment, especially as he never published on them himself. He is commemorated by Dupontia cooleyi A. Gray (Graphephorum cooleyi (A. Gray) Farw.), now considered a synonym of Graphephorum melicoides, and Carex cooleyi Dewey, now considered a synonym of C. hystericina.

Zina Pitcher (April 12, 1797–April 5, 1872)

Dr. Zina Pitcher is most familiar to Michigan botanists for having Cirsium pitcheri (Pitcher’s thistle), arguably the most charismatic Great Lakes endemic, named for him. A number of other plants also commemorate him, but from his more extensive collecting in the south, especially present-day Arkansas. Otherwise, Pitcher is less well known in botanical circles than many early Michigan collectors, as he made his major contributions in medicine and politics. He was influential in the University of Michigan, serving a long term on the Board of Regents from 1837 through 1851, and serving also as Mayor of Detroit (Hinsdale 1906). Of Pitcher, Eaton and Wright (1840) note: “an excellent naturalist and amiable man.” Pitcher shared interests with and was a good friend of Houghton’s, though the latter was 12 years younger, and other members of the small botanical community of the time. Houghton wrote in a letter to John Torrey (Nov. 1, 1839, New York Botanical Garden archives) “Dr. Pitcher is now sitting by me and wishes to be remembered to you.”

Pitcher graduated in medicine from Middlebury College in 1822, though, as Voss (1978) notes, he was a botanical protégé of Amos Eaton through Eaton’s many lectures throughout New England. Pitcher’s primary contributions to botany are his early collecting and especially the fact that his private herbarium, now at the National Arboretum Herbarium (NA), preserved a large set of First Survey collections. These collections were probably selected for Pitcher by Houghton, perhaps in 1839, as the collections mostly have contemporary labels written by George H. Bull, John Wright’s and (in 1839) Douglass Houghton’s botanical assistant (see below). Pitcher’s herbarium also has some Houghton collections from the two Schoolcraft Expeditions to the source of the Mississippi River. Pitcher’s herbarium⁶ was sold by his widow to Isaac Martindale in 1880 and was acquired by the National Arboretum in 1964 (Meyer and Elsasser 1973).

Pitcher collected mostly based out of two sites in Michigan, Sault Ste. Marie, where he was stationed as an army surgeon at Fort Brady from 1826–1828, and Fort Gratiot, now in Port Huron, where he was stationed in 1829, with a few from Saginaw (“Saganaw”) and near his home in Detroit. Few specimens, however, have survived. Pitcher was a correspondent of John Torrey, who helped Pitcher name his plants when there were few useful books available and virtually no botanical resources in what was to become Michigan. Some of his collections at NA have brief commentary in Torrey’s hand, and more are in Torrey’s herbarium, at NY, where they were utilized for Torrey and Gray’s Flora of North America (Torrey and Gray 1838–1840).

In Pitcher’s time, Fort Brady was on the St. Mary’s River in what is now downtown Sault Ste. Marie (Roberts 1988). However, Pitcher traveled widely on Lake Superior, ranging as far west as Fond du Lac (present-day Duluth, Minnesota). Unfortunately, many Pitcher collections in his own herbarium have localities too generalized even to be sure of the country, e.g., “both sides of Lake Superior” or simply “L. Superior,” and he certainly did venture into Canada, e.g., Rubus parviflorus, Gros Cap (Algoma District, Ontario) (NA 0081112). The material that he sent to John Torrey was often somewhat more completely labeled.

Perhaps the most noteworthy of Pitcher’s extant collections from near Sault Ste. Marie is Adenocaulon bicolor (trail-plant), collected from “Cole-pit Hill” (situated at or near the present-day site of Lake Superior State University), Chippewa County, June 24, 1826 (Figure 8). Pitcher sent a duplicate of this collection to Torrey to be identified as he did not recognize it himself, with good reason. Not only was this the first collection of the species in eastern North America, Adenocaulon bicolor being one of the western disjuncts for which the upper Great Lakes are famous, but the genus and species were not yet described, as it would not be named until 1829, from western American collections. Of course, during this assignment, Pitcher also collected the Great Lakes endemic that bears his name, Cirsium pitcheri, from “the great Sand Banks of Lake Superior”—the Grand Sable Dunes (Figure 9), which are at the eastern end of what is now Picture Rocks National Lakeshore.

Figure 8.

Dr. Zina Pitcher’s herbarium collection of Adenocaulon bicolor gathered June 24, 1826 near Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County. Photo courtesy of the University of Michigan Herbarium.

Figure 9.

Cirsium pitcheri on the Grand Sable Dunes, Alger County, where it was discovered by Zina Pitcher 1826–1828 “on the Great Sand Banks of Lake Superior.” Photo by Ted Roper, July 13, 2022.

A few undated collections are from “Saganaw” (Saginaw County), presumably at stops to re-supply at the trading post near the mouth of the Saginaw River, established in 1816, rather than the short-lived Fort Saginaw nearby, decommissioned by the time of Pitcher’s service (Romig 1972). In any event, these few were likely gathered while traveling between Fort Brady and Detroit during the years 1826–1828 and are included with these specimens. One sheet has both “St. Marie” and “Saganaw,” but only one specimen. The specimens known thus far from Pitcher’s service at Fort Brady are noted in Table 3.

Substantially more collections survive from Pitcher’s 1829 assignment to Fort Gratiot. Fort Gratiot was located along the St. Clair River, near what is currently Pine Grove Park in Port Huron, about one mile south of Lake Huron (Roberts 1988). Pitcher did not range so widely during his stint at Fort Gratiot, but certainly visited the beaches and dunes of Lake Huron, collecting for the first time two Great Lakes region endemic dune grasses, Calamovilfa longifolia var. magna (sand reed grass) and Elymus lanceolatus subsp. psammophilus (wheat grass), a very glaucous plant with striking, hairy spikelets (Figure 10). Both were from the sandy shores of Lake Huron near Port Huron. He ventured into Canada here as well, collecting Cypripedium candidum (white lady-slipper) on June 20, 1829 in “meadows, on the Canada side of R. St. Clair, near Fort Gratiot” (Lambton County, Ontario) (NY). Pitcher also collected about his home in Detroit, Wayne County, but thus far, only a single undated collection has been seen: Ludwigia polycarpa (false loosestrife), Detroit, swamp (NY).

Figure 10.

Elymus lanceolatus subsp. psammophilus inflorescence, Chip­ pewa County. Photo by the author, June 20, 2021.

The species Desmodium sessilifolium (sessile-leaved tick-trefoil) and Turritis brachycarpa Torr. & A. Gray (now Boechera grahamii, rock cress) were both based in part on Pitcher specimens from Fort Gratiot. For 170 years, until 1999, the only collection of Draba nemorosa (whitlow-grass) known from Michigan was Pitcher’s from Fort Gratiot. A recently recognized Pitcher specimen of Eurybia schreberi (Schreber’s aster) from Fort Gratiot still appears to be the only collection of this more eastern species from Michigan. Though Pitcher did not collect large numbers of plants in Michigan, his specimens are often cryptically and sometimes quite incompletely labeled, so additional Michigan specimens doubtless remain undetected in his herbarium at NA or in Torrey’s herbarium at NY. See Figure 8 for a sample of Pitcher’s handwriting.

Edwin James (August 27, 1797–October 28, 1861)

Dr. Edwin James, like Zina Pitcher and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, was a graduate of Middlebury College (in 1816, well before Pitcher), and, through attending lectures while living in the Albany, New York region, he also became a protégé of Amos Eaton, furthering his interest in botany. As noted by Voss (1978), he was stationed as a doctor at Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island from May 23, 1827 to the end of August, at which time he went on assignment to Fort Brady, overlapping with Pitcher, but staying there until the spring of 1832. While at Fort Brady, he helped Douglass Houghton identify some of the plants Houghton collected on the 1831 Schoolcraft Expedition. In a Michigan context, James is best known for having collected Cirsium pitcheri, described by Eaton (1829a) with the interesting note: “First found by Dr. Zina Pitcher, on the great sand banks of Lake Superior. My specimen was collected by Dr. E. James at Lake Huron, from which I made this description, not having seen Dr. Torrey’s.” James’ specimen, the type of Cirsium pitcheri, has not been located and likely no longer exists (Voss 1956). Pitcher’s specimen, which is in Torrey’s herbarium, is extant. James also apparently sent specimens to John Torrey. However, no Michigan specimens collected by James have been discovered as yet. The widespread southern deciduous forest sedge Carex jamesii is named in his honor, but from a collection made in Indiana. James is most famous for the plants he gathered on the Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1820. Lammers (2016) presents much information about James.

Nathan Wright Folwell (December 27, 1805–February 4, 1879)

Dr. Nathan Folwell is poorly known as a Michigan collector, but he sent Asa Gray collections he gathered in southeastern Michigan during a visit in June and July of 1832. Folwell was a resident of New York state and a classmate of Asa Gray’s at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Fairfield, New York. He was clearly a close friend to Gray and was perhaps the first person to contribute specimens to Gray’s herbarium (Stuckey 1978b). Gray (1893) noted that he visited “a chum,” Dr. Folwell in 1830 on a trip to western New York and, in late 1831 or early 1832, sent “my friend Dr. N. W. Folwell” a list of plants Torrey had hoped Gray could supply. This was likely the impetus for Folwell’s collecting in Michigan, for Gray had written Torrey in January 1831 that he hoped during the next summer “to visit the western part of this State and also Ohio and Michigan” (Gray 1893). Gray did not make this trip, but his chum Folwell made a trip through southeastern Michigan in June and July of 1832. In March 1833, Folwell was appointed as a hospital surgeon in New York state, and he did not pursue his botanical interests. His herbarium is at the Wiegand Herbarium at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York (CU), where at least 80 sheets from Michigan are known and, of course, many are in GH, from Gray’s herbarium, though none with contemporary labels, and a few at PH (Stuckey 1978b) and the United States National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (US). Stuckey (1978b) also provides additional biographical information about Folwell.

While most of Folwell’s collections are merely noted as being from “Michigan Territory,” variously abbreviated “M.T.” or “Mich. Ter.,” some note the county, and a few have more specific localities in Lenawee, Monroe, Washtenaw, and Wayne Counties. The localities listed in Table 4 offer a snapshot of his travels in southeastern Michigan in 1832. All are from June and July, though very few have specific dates; the one Detroit collection has only the year, but that must have been his starting point, arriving by steamboat from New York state sometime in June. The preponderance of Folwell collections, though not specifying a county or a specific locality, were made along the River Raisin or Macon Creek in Lenawee or Monroe County.

Few of Folwell’s labels have habitat information, though from the species he gathered, he clearly visited moist and dry sandy oak openings, upland and wetland forests, including river floodplains, plus a bog lake. Folwell’s collecting seemed highly selective, probably because he was trying to fill specific requests from Asa Gray. For example, the only sedges among his collections were Carex decomposita (Figure 11), now thought to be extirpated from Michigan, and the rather local C. squarrosa, and he gathered only one fern, Dryopteris goldieana (Goldie’s woodfern). About Carex decomposita, Dewey (1834) noted: “Found abundantly by Dr. Folwell in a swamp near the river Raisin, in Michigan Territory, and sent to Dr. Gray of Utica, N.Y., who has obligingly sent me specimens.” Among the very few aliens he collected in 1832 was Lythrum hyssopifolia (hyssop loosestrife), collected at Detroit, Wayne County. and not seen again in Michigan until 2004 when collected again in Wayne County!

Figure 11.

Carex decomposita in Coahoma County, Mississippi. Photo by the author, May 24, 1993.

William Boott (June 15, 1805–May 16, 1887)

William Boott, the younger brother of the famed Carex monographer Francis Boott, lived in Boston and collected mostly in New England. He was a correspondent of Asa Gray and was especially fond of sedges (doubtless due to the influence of Francis), grasses, and Isoetes. There are, however, at least 90 collections dating from 1836 to 1874, mostly from southern Michigan, at GH, but with only a few from 1840 or before. These include several spring collections from Detroit, Wayne County, dated May 11–12, 1836, Cardamine douglassii, Ranunculus hispidus var. caricetorum (swamp buttercup), and Viola rostrata (longspurred violet), plus Betula pumila (dwarf birch) and the sedge Carex sartwellii collected July 1, 1838 at Grass Lake in Jackson County. Perhaps his most notable collection was of the very rare (in Michigan) sedge Carex haydenii also from Jackson County in 1858, beyond this time frame. A substantial number of Boott’s Michigan collections were from along railways, and the probable explanation for his travels through Michigan and elsewhere over so many years presents itself in his obituary notice: “His excellent talents were sought by one of the western railway companies, to which for many years he devoted a portion of his time” (Gray 1888). Boott did have other Michigan collectors represented in his herbarium, such as Henry Gillman, but was fastidious about proper attributions.

Mary Heatherington Clark (June 25, 1813–June 30, 1875)

Prominent as an educator, and collecting plants extensively throughout Michigan later in the 1800s, Mary H. Clark, born in New York, began collecting plants at least by 1837 while still living in New York, e.g., Rubus odoratus (flowering raspberry), Sodus, [Wayne County], New York, August, 1837 (MICH 1502559). Shortly before moving to Michigan, she apparently attended the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York (Stephenson 1928). There, botany would have been very important, as the School’s founder and principal, Emma Willard, was much influenced by Amos Eaton (Voss 1978), and Willard’s sister, Almira Hart Lincoln, vice-principal from 1824–1831, was the author of a popular botany text for women (Lincoln 1829) that ran through many editions. She presumably had the opportunity to attend public lectures by Eaton while in Troy (though women were not admitted to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute until 1942!)⁷

The family moved to Brighton, Livingston County, Michigan in the fall of 1837 (Voss 1978), and she collected a number of plants in 1838, mostly from near Mont Lake (later Clark Lake) near Brighton. Mary Clark’s herbarium is at MICH, and her few known collections within this timeframe are listed alphabetically below, all from Livingston County in 1838 and most from Mont Lake (dates noted, if present, and locality, if not Mont Lake): Amphicarpaea bracteata (hog-peanut), Apios americana (groundnut), Aronia prunifolia (chokeberry), Desmodium sessilifolium, Hylodesmum nudiflorum (naked tick-trefoil), August 13; Lathyrus venosus (veiny pea), Lespedeza capitata (round-headed bush-clover), August 13; L. hirta (hairy bush-clover), August 13; Cyperus subsquarrosus (dwarf-bulrush), Prenanthes racemosa (glaucous white lettuce), Rubus hispidus (swamp dewberry), July; Tephrosia virginiana (goats-rue), Greenoak Plains, July 3; and Trifolium repens (white clover) “Gathered in Mr. Gale’s dooryard” [Brighton area].

No 1839 or 1840 collections by Mary Clark have been seen; the next dated collection was from 1847. She opened a women’s school in Ann Arbor November 18, 1839 and, in December 1839, in conjunction with her sister Chloe A. Clark, a Select School for Young Ladies (Michigan Argus 1875). Presumably, she was intensely busy with planning and developing the schools for some time after 1838. All of the relatively few species she gathered this early on are still present in Livingston County or in immediately adjacent areas; though Tephrosia virginiana (Figure 12), from the “Greenoak Plains,” is now quite rare in the region and offers mute testimony to an open barrens long vanished. She exchanged herbarium specimens widely, and some of her collections are in GH, NY, and doubtless elsewhere.

Figure 12.

Tephrosia virginiana showing fuzzy legumes in an Oak Barrens in Washtenaw County, ca. 20 km SW of Mary Clark’s July 3, 1838 Livingston County collection site. Photo by the author, August 17, 2024.

Mary Clark stands out as a pioneer woman botanist in Michigan and the Great Lakes region. Besides her extensive collecting, she promoted botany in her schools and apparently took her students on weekly excursions to collect and study plants (Tobin 2024). The relatively solitary pursuit of collecting plants allowed her to make a major contribution to science even when becoming part of the scientific establishment was not possible for women. Her life and botanical work are deserving of fuller treatment.

Asa Gray (November 18, 1810–January 30, 1888)

Before Asa Gray’s illustrious career at Harvard University, he was the first (though non-resident) professor of Botany and Zoology at the University of Michigan. He was appointed July 17, 1838 and resigned on May 28, 1842 (Robbins 1930, Bartlett 1941). Gray is included here not for his collecting, but because of his post at the University and his help to Douglass Houghton, the First Survey, and other early Michigan botanists. Gray visited Michigan only once, arriving in Detroit August 14, 1838, busily meeting with prominent citizens and conducting University business (Robbins 1930). On August 15, 1838, Gray visited Houghton’s home in Detroit, spending nearly the whole day examining collections, presumably including such First Survey materials as Houghton had on hand. Gray noted that Houghton’s house “is entirely occupied as a store-house for the stuff collected in the State Survey. It is astonishing what a prodigious quantity of labor Dr. H. and his companions have done and what extensive collections they have made.” (Gray 1893). A few First Survey collections at MICH appear to have annotations in Gray’s hand, presumably made during this visit (McVaugh 1970). Gray had time to botanize in Ann Arbor only on the morning of August 20, 1838. (Gray 1893) noted: “This morning I have been botanizing, and have secured … some specimens (clusters of Eshcol) of this goodly land.”

The thorough and detailed review by Bartlett (1941) provides a great deal of information about Gray’s non-resident professorship and the milieu of the University at that time. It was surely disappointing to Houghton and other area botanists that Gray did not stay with the University of Michigan. Houghton commented to John Torrey (letter dated November 1, 1839, New York Botanical Garden archives) “I look anxiously for the return of Dr. Gray and trust we may be soon pursuing our favorite subjects side by side.”

Gray did receive material from the First Survey, but it is unclear how much. These specimens are at GH, but unfortunately are simply designated “Michigan State Coll.,” “Michigan Coll.,” or sometimes unhelpfully just “Michigan.” Gray typically labeled collections in his herbarium in such a cryptic and abbreviated fashion, which can frustrate efforts to track down their sources and more complete data. A few First Survey collections reached Torrey or Gray in time to be included in the first volume of their Flora of North America (Torrey and Gray 1838–1840). No collections made by Gray during his morning of botanizing in Ann Arbor on August 20, 1838 have thus far come to light.

George (Georg) Engelmann (February 2, 1809–February 4, 1884)

Dr. George Engelmann became famous in botanical circles after settling in St. Louis, Missouri in 1835 and establishing a medical practice. After his practice was on firm financial footing, he traveled back to his native Germany to marry and, as proper for a botanist, Engelmann took his new bride to St. Louis by a scenic route that involved collecting plants in Michigan. He made his way from Boston to Detroit and, in August of 1840, took a steamboat from Detroit to Chicago. Most of his collections were from a stop in Lake Michigan on “Manitou Island” (South Manitou, which had a harbor suitable for larger ships), where he would have had more time as the ship loaded wood to fuel the boiler. Other collections, presumably from briefer steamboat stops, cannot be localized, saying merely “Banks of Lake Huron.”

About 30 specimens collected by Engelmann are known in the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium (MO), and doubtless some are yet overlooked. Engelmann’s collections reflect plants available from quick sorties near the northern shores of the Great Lakes and thus mostly are of plants interesting for their restriction to dune and beach habitats, but already known from Michigan, such as Cirsium pitcheri, Juniperus horizontalis (creeping juniper), and the Great Lakes shoreline endemic Prunus pumila var. pumila (sand cherry). He gathered the second known collection of the Great Lakes endemic grass Elymus lanceolatus subsp. psammophilus. On South Manitou, he evidently had time to enter coniferous and even deciduous or mixed forests to gather species such as Clintonia borealis (bluebead-lily), Pyrola chlorantha (shinleaf), Trientalis borealis (star-flower), Corallorhiza maculata (spotted coral-root), and Epifagus virginiana (beech-drops). Engelmann did not publish on his Michigan collections, and his great contributions to North American botany came later in his life. Bek (1920) presents an outline of the early part of his life.

Ithamar Bingham Crawe (June 11, 1792–June 2, 1847)

Dr. Ithamar B. Crawe was a correspondent of the Carex monographer Chester Dewey, who wrote his obituary (Dewey 1847), as well as of Asa Gray and John Torrey, but virtually nothing is known about his collecting in Michigan. Here, he collected the type of Carex straminea var. crawei Boott, upon which Carex bicknellii Britton was based (Rothrock and Reznicek 2001). The only collection seen, which is in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, U.K. (K), is undated and without specific locality, but Crawe lived in Pontiac, Oakland County, Michigan, ca. 1837–1840 (Everts and Holcomb 1878), and this specimen was presumably collected during this time. Crawe and Wright were at least indirectly connected while both were in New York (see, e.g., Eaton and Wright’s (1840) note under Carex chordorrhiza: “description is translated from Persoon’s Synopsis, with some additions taken from a specimen presented to Dr. J. Hall by Dr. Crawe”). Hall was Wright’s co-author for their work on the plants of the Troy area (Wright and Hall 1836). Whether he had contact with First Survey botanists while in Michigan is unknown, though George H. Bull did visit Pontiac on May 24, 1839. Perhaps additional Michigan specimens will come to light as more large herbaria become fully digitized.

Crawe’s botanical activities are much more associated with the interesting limestone terrain around Watertown, New York, where he lived most of his life. He clearly had a special interest in Carex, and one of Michigan’s most distinctive and interesting sedges, the small calciphile Carex crawei, was named for him from a specimen he gathered near Watertown. In the same year that Dewey named the plant C. crawei, John Torrey named it C. heterostachya, based in part on a Houghton and Bull collection from Drummond Island; the latter name, however, is a later homonym of C. heterostachya Bunge, from Asia. Crawe died tragically in the line of duty, drowning in Perch Lake, New York, while gathering plant specimens to fulfill a request from Asa Gray (Everts and Holcomb 1878).

Daniel Clarke (April 10, 1811–April 16, 1884)

Barely within the time frame considered here, Dr. Daniel Clarke moved to the Flint area early in 1840, after receiving his medical degree from the Harvard Medical School in 1839, and established his medical practice. He was also very active in both civic affairs and science and immediately started collecting plants in the area, although most of his collecting was in the 1860s and 1870s. Only two 1840 specimens have come to light, from Grand Blanc [Twp.], Genesee County: Epigaea repens (trailing-arbutus) and the earliest extant Michigan collection of the rare orchid Isotria verticillata (whorled pogonia) from “sec. 36,” both dated merely 1840. Beal (1901b) provides a brief biographical sketch of Clarke. His extensive herbarium is at MSC. Clarke was commemorated by a willow name, Salix “clarkei,” coined by Beal (1904) for the hybrid S. candida × S. petiolaris, but unfortunately in the form of a provisional name, thus not validly published. Like Dennis Cooley, Clarke’s considerable botanical contributions to Michigan are worthy of fuller treatment.

Douglass Houghton (September 21, 1809–October 13, 1845)

Houghton was a student of Eaton’s at the Rensselaer School, graduating in 1829, but staying on with an appointment as an instructor, “Assistant to the Junior Professor,” in 1830 (Nason 1875, Ricketts 1914). Houghton was a prodigiously productive figure in science, business, and politics, and much detail is available about his short life, especially through his biography (Rintala 1954). Though primarily known today as a geologist, Houghton’s first love was botany. He collected his first plant specimens before his 14th birthday, in the spring of 1823 at his boyhood home in Fredonia, New York. He wrote to John Torrey from Fredonia on March 20, 1832 (New York Botanical Garden archives): “During the summer of 1824–5, I devoted much of my time to collecting and making a catalogue of the plants⁸ of this County (Chautauqua) together with those of the western parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio.” This was when he was 15 and 16! By 1831, he had in his personal herbarium many hundreds of collections, mostly from the vicinity of Troy, New York⁹ and other points east, signaling great things to come.

Houghton’s connection to Michigan began late in 1830, when Lucius Lyon, the delegate to Congress from the Territory of Michigan, traveled to Troy, New York, to seek advice from Amos Eaton at the Rensselaer School, about hiring a scientist to present public lectures in Detroit (Hubbard 1848). Quoting from Houghton’s biography (Rintala 1954): “Detroit’s citizens, who numbered slightly less than two thousand, had acquired a desire to learn as much as possible about the scientific achievements of the period in which they lived.” Eaton recommended Houghton and made introductions. Houghton was hired to give public lectures on chemistry and geology in Detroit (Wallin 2004) in the winter of 1830–1831. Houghton arrived in Michigan about November 17, 1830, a little past his 21st birthday. His lectures were very popular, quickly making him a prominent citizen. Houghton was a prime mover in the Young Men’s Society of Detroit, founded in 1832, of which he was elected President July 12, 1833 and through which he became acquainted with Stevens T. Mason, Michigan’s first governor, and also Bela Hubbard, later Houghton’s geology assistant (Berg 1967). Indeed, he was connected with all the important people in science and politics in Michigan. The course of Michigan botany and geology was forever altered.

Houghton began his contributions to Michigan’s natural history collections immediately. In November 1830 he made his first collection in Michigan, the fungus Hydnophlebia chrysorhiza (Eaton) Parmasto (MICH 1480000), “Between the grain of wood, Detroit,” preserved in the seven bound volumes constituting part of the Houghton herbarium. Houghton’s first Michigan vascular plant collection was the precocious Petasites frigidus in flower from “gravelly banks near Mackinac, Lake Huron” (Fort Mackinac, on Mackinac Island), dated April 1831, also in his bound herbarium volumes. Was he stimulated to collect flowering material by reading Nuttall’s comments about the striking summer leaves resembling Podophyllum? Houghton collections are mostly at MICH, where his personal herbarium was donated in 1864 (McVaugh 1970); these specimens, if not part of his bound herbarium, usually have distinctive labels bearing his name stamped in black in small capital letters. A small set is at NA from the herbarium of Zina Pitcher (see the discussion of Pitcher, above), with a scattering at GH, MSC, NY, and at the University of Wisconsin Herbarium (WIS) through I. A. Lapham’s exchanges.

Houghton is commemorated in the interesting Great Lakes region sedges Carex houghtoniana and Cyperus houghtonii (smooth sand sedge), described from Houghton collections from the Schoolcraft Expeditions, and Solidago houghtonii, the Great Lakes region endemic Houghton’s goldenrod, described from an 1839 First Survey collection. Malva houghtonii Torr. & A. Gray and Synthyris houghtoniana Benth. were also described from the Houghton Schoolcraft Expedition collections, but these are now synonyms of Callirhoe triangulata (Leavenw.) A. Gray (clustered poppy mallow) and Besseya bullii, respectively. All but the Solidago houghtonii, were collected west of present-day Michigan.

Bela Hubbard (April 23, 1814–June 13, 1896)

Though Hubbard collected no plants, he played a unique and critical role in early Michigan botany, and a very brief notice seems warranted. Hubbard came to Michigan in 1835 and became Douglass Houghton’s assistant in 1837 for the First Geological Survey, although he had known Houghton beforehand, as they were both members of the Young Men’s Society of Detroit (Berg 1967). As McVaugh (1970) noted, his duties were primarily geological in nature. However, he is responsible for labelling essentially all of Houghton’s plant collections (except those placed by Houghton in his bound herbarium) with his neat, distinctive, and legible hand, starting from Houghton’s first specimens gathered around his parents’ home in Fredonia, New York in 1823, plus collections from both Schoolcraft Expeditions, and Houghton’s few collections made during the First Survey. As well, Hubbard labeled the majority of specimens gathered by Abram Sager during the first year (1837) of the First Survey. Without Hubbard’s work labeling the material, these collections could well have been in chaos, and the information they provide irretrievable. Though eminently legible, Hubbard’s labels were unfortunately quite abbreviated, often including only the month and year, a brief location, and no habitat, doubtless due to preparation years after the collections were made; this presumably also accounting for the scattering of date and year errors. The other important role Hubbard played is that through publication of his memoirs (Hubbard 1887), he provided the only firsthand account of the travels of some of the First Survey geological parties. See Russell (1904b) for a biographical sketch of Hubbard.

Abram Sager (December 22, 1810–August 6, 1877)

Dr. Abram Sager (Figure 13) was a student of Amos Eaton’s at the Rensselaer School, entering in 1829 and graduating in 1831, a year he also held an appointment as “Assistant to the Junior Professor,” the same post Houghton held the year before (Ricketts 1914). He would have known Houghton during 1830 when they were there together. He later became a well-known Professor of Zoology and Botany at the University of Michigan (from 1842–1850), shifting his interests more towards medicine, eventually becoming Dean of the Medical School. His herbarium of 1555 specimens and 4259 duplicates was donated to the University of Michigan in 1866 (Proceedings of the Board of Regents 1864-1870) (not 1886 as quoted by McVaugh 1970), but it seemingly contained relatively few identifiable Michigan or First Survey collections. The report of 12,000 specimens by Hinsdale (1906) appears to be in error. Sager apparently collected little after the First Survey, and mostly later in life, in Florida.

Figure 13.

Dr. Abram Sager ca. 1860s. Photo courtesy Bentley Historical Library digital collections, University of Michigan.

John Wright (February 2, 1811–April 11, 1846)¹⁰

Like Houghton and Sager, Wright attended the Rensselaer School in 1828 but did not graduate. He finished his medical training at Yale College, where, as Eaton (Eaton and Wright 1840) noted, “he had the benefit of Professors Ives’ and Silliman’s instructions.” Wright graduated in 1833 (Voss 1978) and developed a successful medical practice in Troy. He was active in Troy botany, coauthoring the first list of plants of the Troy area (Wright and Hall 1836), though few Wright specimens from the Troy area appear to have survived. Houghton hired him as the botanist for the 1838 First Survey. After resigning at the end of the 1838 field season, Wright joined the Rensselaer School faculty, serving as Professor of Botany and Zoology from 1838 to 1845 (Nason 1875, 1887). Wright was unfortunately plagued by illness after his First Survey work, as repeatedly mentioned in correspondence and even in Eaton and Wright (1840). No Wright collections are known after his service with the First Survey.

George Hiram Bull (October 4, 1818–August 8, 1854)

About Bull, Voss (1978) commented that “we know almost nothing except that Eaton named a plant for him in 1840, Gymnandra bullii“ (Besseya bullii). Though some details are still unclear, Bull was born in Troy, was hired from there by Wright as his assistant for 1838 and became Houghton’s assistant in 1839. As Bela Hubbard did for the 1837 First Survey collections, George Bull labeled the 1838 and 1839 collections in his distinctive and neat hand (McVaugh 1970). Houghton (1840) credits Bull essentially with rescuing the materials: “By his assistance I have been enabled to place the botanical portion of the work in such condition that it may be of use in the final and connected reports which are required to be made.” In 1839, when he was Houghton’s botanical assistant, it is likely that Bull himself took the initiative to collect a number of willows in flower and return later to the same willows to collect mature leaves. A keen and dedicated botanist, no doubt.

Bull returned to Troy after the 1839 field season. He maintained his interest in botany, helping Wright and Eaton prepare the eighth edition of Eaton’s Manual while “at leisure¹¹“ staying with his father in Troy (Eaton letter to John Torrey, February 10, 1840, New York Botanical Garden archives). He was quite active in Troy society. Stevens (1869), in his history of the Troy Young Men’s Association, noted that George H. Bull was appointed as Librarian in 1841 (resigning August 1842). John Wright was one of the managers of the Association for 1841. Besides a library, the Association maintained a natural history collection and had lecture programs. Doubtless through Wright and Bull’s connection with Michigan, one of the speakers in the 1844–45 season was Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. Bull’s father, Archibald Bull, was a Judge and a prominent Mason, and he and his son George were instrumental in founding a new lodge in 1842 (George was secretary). He received his medical degree some time afterwards and then moved to California in 1850 to practice medicine, living in Santa Clara County, marrying a prominent widow, Liberata O. Ceseña, in 1851, and passing away there in 1854. His son, George P. Bull, became an important local citizen (Foote 1888). He apparently never pursued botany after his work on the First Survey and his assistance with Eaton’s Manual. Despite the important role he played in Michigan plant collecting in 1838 and 1839, Bull’s name almost never appears on any herbarium specimen label.

THE SCHOOLCRAFT EXPEDITIONS (1831 AND 1832)

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was a major figure in Michigan history. He was a scientist, explorer, and author, of considerable fame (Rittenhouse and Voss 1962) and was especially active in the fields of Indigenous American anthropology and ethnology, his major life’s work, including publication of a 6-volume treatise on this topic (Schoolcraft 1851-1857). For botanists, his contribution was organizing the two expeditions on which Douglass Houghton collected plants.

The two Schoolcraft Expeditions of 1831 and 1832 followed the 1820 Cass Expedition, covering similar territory, but with somewhat altered goals. For the 1831 expedition, Lewis Cass, the Territorial Governor, wrote Schoolcraft on August 9, 1830 “I have been directed by the War Department to request you to proceed into the Chippewa country, to endeavor to put an end to the hostilities between the Chippewas and Sioux. The general route must be left to your discretion” (Schoolcraft 1834). Schoolcraft organized his first expedition for 1831, noting: “The portion of country situated between the bands of Lake Superior and the Mississippi, south of St. Anthony’s falls, occupied the summer of 1831.” This expedition ran into low water on the Mississippi River. Schoolcraft (1834) commented “Extensive portions of its outer channel and bars, were found exposed and dry. The party encamped on a sand bar formed by the junction of the Chippewa, which is usually several feet under water.” The expedition turned around and descended the Mississippi into Illinois without reaching its source. The second Schoolcraft Expedition was similarly sponsored, based on a “renewal of the effort to effect a permanent peace with the two principal Indian nations, who inhabit that region” (Schoolcraft 1834) and also “supervision of the trade, the acquisition of statistical facts, and the carrying into effect an act of Congress of that year, for extending the benefits of vaccination to the Indian tribes.” This expedition was further asked “to proceed to the country on the heads of the Mississippi” and met the goal of finding the source of the Mississippi River on July 13, 1832.

Schoolcraft was instrumental in the furtherance of Douglass Houghton’s scientific career. He noted (Schoolcraft 1851):

While at Detroit during the winter [of 1831], I had invited Dr. Douglass Houghton to accompany me [on the 1831 Schoolcraft Expedition] to vaccinate the Indians. He was a man of pleasing manners and deportment, small of stature, and of a compact make, and apparently well suited to withstand the fatigues incidental to such a journey. He was a good botanist and geologist—objects of interest to me at all times; but especially so now, for I should have considered it inexcusable to conduct an expedition into the Indian country, without collecting data over and above the public duties, to understand its natural history.

Houghton indeed added a great deal to our understanding of Michigan natural history through the plant collections he made in the Upper Peninsula during the two Schoolcraft Expeditions. Collections are mostly in the general herbarium at MICH, and in Pitcher’s herbarium at NA, although a few Schoolcraft Expedition specimens from 1831 are also found in Houghton’s herbarium books (he stopped adding to his herbarium books after 1831). Most of the specimen labels on the MICH set of collections from both expeditions were written by Bela Hubbard, Houghton’s assistant during the First Survey. These labels are much abbreviated, often including only the month and year, a brief location, and no habitat. Hubbard did not become Houghton’s assistant until 1837, so the labels were prepared some years after the plants were collected, this perhaps accounting for the scattering of date and year errors. It might even be suspected that the month, in specimens with only a month as the date, was estimated from the condition of the plant. Specimens sent to John Torrey from the Schoolcraft Expeditions were labeled in an even more abbreviated fashion. Houghton wrote to Torrey on November 24, 1832 (New York Botanical Garden archives): “Nearly all the plants are labeled in my collection, but as it was done in great haste and under unfavorable circumstances I would be unwilling to send them without reviewing— time will not allow me to do this and to obviate all difficulties I have concluded to send them with the bare localities.” However, few collections appear extant in Torrey’s herbarium (NY).

THE UNSUCCESSFUL 1831 EXPEDITION

Unlike the well-known second Schoolcraft Expedition in 1832, no separate published treatment exists for the first Schoolcraft Expedition, which remains rather poorly documented and did not reach its goal. The expedition embarked too late in the season, traveled more slowly, and thus met with low summer water levels that prevented the ascent to the source of the Mississippi River. Schoolcraft’s goals for this expedition were also in large part to deal with Indigenous American affairs. The discussion below focuses on Michigan; the expedition collected a substantial number of plants west of Michigan, and these deserve a fuller treatment. Houghton wrote John Torrey on March 20, 1832 (New York Botanical Garden archives) and included a list of plants he collected; some with localities, but the list included no dates (and those cannot be otherwise approximated from their position in the list, since the list is arranged alphabetically by plant name).

Houghton traveled, by water, from Detroit to Sault Ste. Marie in early June, to reach the embarkation point of the expedition. He moved quickly, however, and no 1831 specimens from en route are known until Houghton was on the St. Mary’s River, where he collected Clintonia borealis in “Upper Canada” on June 10 (MICH 1338563). On that day, he was becalmed ca. 24 km from Sault Ste. Marie.¹² The Clintonia was therefore likely collected near the north end of St. Joseph Island, Algoma District, Ontario. The April 1831 Houghton collection of Petasites frigidus from Mackinac Island presumably was gathered on an earlier planning trip to make arrangements for this expedition, as Houghton mentions it among plants gathered on the Schoolcraft Expedition in the letter to John Torrey of March 20, 1832 (New York Botanical Garden archives).

Houghton arrived at Sault Ste. Marie on June 11, having collected a plant there on that day (Table 5), but the expedition did not embark until late June. During this time at Sault Ste. Marie, Houghton collected a number of plants from along the St Mary’s River near Sault Ste. Marie ranging as far afield as a geological trip to Point Iroquois at the eastern head of Lake Superior, where he collected on June 16. These are listed in Table 5. Houghton also made interesting collections at Point Aux Pins, on the St. Mary’s River in Algoma District, Ontario, including Anthoxanthum hirtum (MICH 1337740), Avenella flexuosa (MICH 1337739), Hudsonia tomentosa (MICH 1337736, NA 0081078), Lathyrus japonicus (MICH 1337738), Physocarpus opulifolius (MICH 1337737), and Tanacetum bipinnatum subsp. huronense (MICH 1480467, NA 0081077). These are dated only “June” and were perhaps gathered on June 25 after embarking, or on one of Houghton’s day trips prior to departure. An undated collection of Ranunculus reptans (NA 0081074) from Sault Ste. Marie also states “Canada side” on the label.

The brief Michigan itinerary of the expedition outlined below has been mainly gleaned from the commentary in Schoolcraft (1834, 1851, 1855) and from the labels of Houghton’s plant collections. Their travel through Michigan certainly did not follow a “9 to 5” routine, often traveling late, or even all night, which was possible since they traveled by water. A day-by-day itinerary is thus a little more complex to generate, but insofar as specific dates are available on labels, they are consistent with this itinerary. All known plant collections are noted in the itinerary below. Houghton gathered at least 50 Michigan collections on the 1831 Schoolcraft Expedition.

Itinerary of the 1831 Schoolcraft Expedition in Michigan

June 25: Embarked from Sault Ste. Marie.

June 26 and 27: The expedition camped on “the small sandy plain at the foot of Point Iroquois, at the entrance into Lake Superior,” entering onto the Lake on June 27. Dated plant collections from Point Iroquois, however, were June 16, on a separate geological trip, and the few undated collections were likely made then.

June 28: The expedition camped at Vermillion Bay, Chippewa County and collected Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Dendrolycopodium dendroideum, Prunus pumila var. pumila, Spinulum annotinum,¹³ and Vaccinium myrtilloides; also the lichen Stereocaulon tomentosum Fr. (MICH 126428).

June 29: The expedition camped at Grand Marais, Alger County and collected Cirsium pitcheri¹⁴ and Lithospermum caroliniense at the Grand Sable Dunes.

June 30: The expedition camped on Grand Island and collected Empetrum nigrum and Primula mistassinica nearby at the Pictured Rocks, Alger County.

July 1: The expedition camped at the mouth of the Dead River near Marquette, and gathered nearby on Presque Isle, Marquette County, Arabis pycnocarpa, Danthonia spicata, Pinguicula vulgaris (Figure 14), and Primula mistassinica.

Figure 14.

Pinguicula vulgaris on moist rocks at Presque Isle, Marquette County Lake Superior, where collected by Douglass Houghton July 1, 1831. Photo by Nate Martineau, June 3, 2020.

July 2: The expedition reached Granite Point, Marquette County and gathered Corallorhiza maculata.

July 3: En route from Granite Point to the mouth of the Huron River, camping site uncertain and no plants collected on this day.

July 4: The expedition reached the Huron River in far western Marquette County; no specimens known.

July 5 to 8: The expedition reached the Keweenaw Peninsula. Most collections are labeled merely “Keweenaw Point.” One, Picea mariana (NA 0081087), is dated July 5. The expedition navigated around the Keweenaw Peninsula, and Schoolcraft (1834) noted: “We were six days in coasting around this peninsula … at some points we employed the blast, to ascertain the true character and contents of the soil. At others we went inland, and devoted the time in exploring its range and extent.” Identifiable sites visited included the Montreal River Mouth, Fort Wilkins, “Roche Vert” (Copper Harbor); several other sites on the northwest coast were not identified, all in Keweenaw County. Other plants collected by Houghton were Artemisia campestris, Dasiphora fruticosa, Drosera linearis, Eriocaulon aquaticum, Lysimachia thyrsiflora, Malaxis unifolia, and Solidago simplex, all merely dated July and noted as “Keweena Pt.” Two rock tripe lichens also survive: Umbilicaria mammulata (Ach.) Tuck. (MICH 133099) and U. muhlenbergii (Ach.) Tuck. (MICH 74141), both from “Keweena Pt.” and dated only July 1831.

July 9: The expedition, now on the other side of the peninsula, “after traveling diligently all night, reached the western terminus of the Keweena portage [Houghton County] at two o’clock next morning [July 9],” this location marked by a dated collection of Triantha glutinosa, July 9, 1831.

July 10: Traveled down the Keweenaw Peninsula, reaching the mouth of the Misery River, Ontonagon County, “and encamped at one o’clock A.M. (11th).”

July 11: The expedition entered the mouth of the Ontonagon River “at half past four o’clock,” camping near the mouth.

July 12: “At three o’clock on the morning of the next day (12th July), Dr. Houghton, Mr. Johnston, Lieut. Clary, and Mr. Woolsey, with nine Canadians and one soldier, set out in my canoe to visit the copper rock.” (The famous Ontonagon Boulder, see above under David Bates Douglass).

July 13: Near the site of the Ontonagon Boulder, where they had camped overnight, collected Dirca palustris. A collection of Allium tricoccum lacking a date from “Ontonagon River of L. Superior, Clay Hills,” Ontonagon County, was presumably also gathered on this side excursion.

July 14: The expedition again spent the night at the mouth of the Ontonagon River.

July 15: They embarked to reach the Mauvaise (Bad) River in Ashland County, Wisconsin in the evening to dry their clothes, and travel on to nearby La Pointe, on Madeline Island, Bayfield County, Wisconsin, which they reached at 1:00 AM on July 16, where Houghton collected more plants, presumably after some rest!

July 16 to August 26: Traveling through Wisconsin and Illinois.

August 26 to September 4: After ascending the Mississippi to its source was blocked by low water levels, the expedition traveled downriver to Galena, Illinois, then north through Wisconsin to Green Bay. They left Green Bay August 26, traveling quickly. Schoolcraft (1851) noted: “It required eight days to traverse the shores and bays to Mackinack, and three more to reach St. Mary’s [Sault Ste. Marie], where I arrived on the 4th of September.” There was little time to collect plants, and none of the few collections known from this portion of the expedition’s travels in Michigan have a locality other than “Lake Michigan.” Equisetum variegatum, dated August 30, was probably from Schoolcraft County, Clinopodium arkansanum and Anticlea elegans, dated August 31, were likely from eastern Schoolcraft County or western Mackinac County. A specimen of the Great Lakes beach and dune endemic Cakile edentula var. lacustris is dated only August 1831 and cannot be localized. All these species are relatively frequent along the northern shores of Lake Michigan.

After returning from the 1831 Schoolcraft Expedition, Houghton stayed at Sault Ste. Marie until early October, arriving back in Detroit October 18. A few plant collections are known during this period, including Galeopsis tetrahit, dated September 30, and Tagetes erecta L., the Mexican marigold (MICH 1480472), dated October 1. The latter was most likely in cultivation, not naturalized, with Houghton’s interest in it probably being curiosity about its medicinal potential.

Houghton had the same difficulties as many of the earlier explorers preserving specimens on this expedition. Several places are noted (Schoolcraft 1851) where Houghton collected plants, but no specimens are extant, e.g., on the Nebaugumowin River “Dr. H. added to his botanical collection.” And, as John Torrey noted in a letter to Schoolcraft (quoted in Schoolcraft 1851) “Dr. Houghton sent me some of the more interesting plants which he brought with him last year, but he said the best part of your collections were destroyed by getting wet.” Nevertheless, the expedition warrants a fuller botanical treatment.

THE SUCCESSFUL 1832 SCHOOLCRAFT EXPEDITION

This expedition has been amply documented in several book length treatments, e.g., Schoolcraft (1834), Schoolcraft (1855), Boutwell (1872), and Mason (1958). As well, the botanical results of the expedition were detailed by Rittenhouse and Voss (1962), to which little can be added here except to interpolate additional collections now known into an abbreviated itinerary restricted to Michigan.

Houghton left Detroit May 30, 1832. The botanical results enumerated by Rittenhouse and Voss (1962), however, begin only after the expedition left Sault Ste. Marie June 7. As with the 1831 expedition, Houghton traveled quickly, by water, from Detroit to Sault Ste. Marie, and collected very little on the way. He did stop, on June 1, at “Dry oak openings” along the St. Clair River, St. Clair County, where he gathered Lithospermum canescens and the very rare Cerastium velutinum, and reported (Houghton 1834) two other species of open habitats for which specimens have not yet been discovered, Cyperus schweinitzii and Myosotis verna. This year, the expedition was focused on leaving promptly for the West, and Houghton gathered no specimens at Sault Ste. Marie.¹⁵

The 1832 expedition, at least in their Michigan travels, moved faster than the 1831 expedition, allowing fewer opportunities for Houghton to collect plants. Only about two dozen collections are known from the Michigan portion of the trip. The abbreviated itinerary presented here is modified from the one by Rittenhouse and Voss (1962). Again, all known specimens are enumerated; the collection at NA had a number of 1832 specimens, allowing for some elaboration of the itinerary.

THE FIRST SURVEY, 1837–1840

This momentous period in Michigan’s botanical history began February 23, 1837 when the legislature authorized the pioneering First Geological Survey only 28 days after Michigan achieved statehood on January 26 (Acts of the Legislature of the State of Michigan passed at the Annual Session of 1837 1838). This act provided for the governor to

appoint a competent person, whose duty it shall be to make an accurate and complete geological survey of this state, which shall be accompanied with proper maps and diagrams, and furnish a full and scientific description of its rocks, soils and minerals, and of its botanical and geological productions, together with specimens of the same; which maps, diagrams and specimens shall be deposited in the state library, and similar specimens shall be deposited in such literary and scientific institutions as the governor shall direct; and the governor is further authorized to appoint from time to time, as the exigencies of the case may require, competent persons to act as assistants under the direction of the geologist.

The First Survey was Douglass Houghton’s conception of what was needed to begin Michigan’s development as a state on a firm scientific footing. Indeed, McVaugh (1970) noted that Houghton “seems to have been almost solely responsible for the planning of the Michigan Geological Survey.” Michigan is fortunate that he had the ear of enough legislators, and of Governor Stevens T. Mason, to bring the Survey into being. The Survey was to include several departments, one of which was botany. Houghton, naturally, was the “competent person” appointed by Governor Mason as State Geologist to head the Survey (Russell 1904a). Though “rocks, soils and minerals” are obviously important, it might seem less clear that a young state should be concerned with botany, but, of course, medicine and botanical knowledge were tightly intertwined at this time and, in Houghton, botany had an influential advocate. Houghton (1839) explained that “[t]he medicinal properties and various uses to which the indigenous plants of our state may be applied are scarcely known, and less appreciated, by our citizens; and while we are looking abroad for many articles necessary to our health and comfort, the very same articles, or those which will answer the purpose equally well, are growing in abundance around us.” Houghton’s commentary reflected the importance of natural products in general to the economy of the time, especially to medicine, but also in terms of timber, vegetation, and soils. Even humble plants like Carex played a role in the rural economy of the times, as Wright (1839) notes, following his list of the many Carex species discovered by the First Survey: “All of the marsh hay made in the state is composed more or less of the species of the preceding genus.” There definitely was a utilitarian focus to the First Survey, contrasting with the intellectual interest driving the earlier explorations or the curiosity of the early citizen-scientists.

In 1838 especially, the First Survey was well funded and lived up to Houghton’s ideals. It was an amazingly progressive scientific accomplishment for a pioneer state. As McVaugh (1970) noted “The Survey in many ways was ahead of its time.” It is due to Douglass Houghton’s foresight, influence, and unswerving devotion to scientific discovery that we are able to learn so much about Michigan’s flora during his time.

The geological aspects of the First Survey were summarized in detail by Merrill (1920), but the botanical portion was virtually unknown until McVaugh (1970)¹⁸ brought order to the collections and highlighted the contributions by the botanists. McVaugh particularly laid the foundation for interpreting the specimens of the First Survey and noted the handwriting of all the collectors involved as well as the people responsible for the secondary labeling. This review builds on McVaugh’s work and explores in greater detail the botanical results of the First Survey from a collections focus, including what the collections can tell us about the ecology and flora of the time. The number of specimens examined here has increased dramatically from the totals reported by McVaugh (1970). This is due in large part to the study of the First Survey specimens in Zina Pitcher’s herbarium at NA (see discussion for Pitcher), which neither McVaugh (1970) nor Voss (1978) examined for their work, perhaps not realizing how much First Survey material it contained. However, there are only modest refinements to McVaugh’s (1970) astoundingly accurate, detailed, and comprehensive treatment of the First Survey collections and itineraries. Without the aid of easily sorted computerized spreadsheets, McVaugh brought order out of the chaos of haphazardly and often misleadingly labeled collections at MICH. He detailed the unfortunate history of the MICH First Survey specimens, for which contemporary labels often were discarded or recycled for other uses in the 1870s and 1880s in favor of neatly written standardized ones with minimal data, or even simply abbreviated data written on the sheets. McVaugh also adjusted the widespread erroneous attribution of Houghton¹⁹ as the collector of the specimens, a problem that still plagues duplicates of First Survey collections in herbaria other than MICH and NA. He provided a brief gazetteer of First Survey localities and illustrated typical labels with various people’s handwriting, both items very helpful for finding and interpreting First Survey collections.

Making labels for sets of duplicates, was much more onerous when everything had to be handwritten. The incentive to abbreviate and choose words carefully must have been considerable! Contemporary labels for collections made during 1837 were, like the Schoolcraft Expedition labels, largely written by Bela Hubbard, Houghton’s geology assistant. Labels for 1838 and 1839 were largely written by George H. Bull, the botany assistant for 1838 and 1839. Despite McVaugh’s (1970) suggestion, it seems clear that the contemporary labels by Hubbard or Bull (present on a portion of the MICH holdings, but on almost all the sheets at NA) were not original field labels, very few of which survive, but more or less contemporary copies. In a few instances, especially on labels written by Bull, erasures are clearly visible, perhaps indicating uncertainty even at this early point, especially with respect to dates, and data are sometimes incomplete. However, the fact that almost all NA sheets have contemporary labels has been a considerable help in augmenting the sparse information on some MICH duplicates. Identifying duplicates to augment collection data was easier than usual, because the First Survey frequently collected species only once.

With some deduction to fill gaps, especially for the poorly labeled collections from the 1837 Survey party, the specimens present a clear and coherent picture with surprisingly few irregularities. The brief treatment below is more specimenfocused than McVaugh’s and more detailed itineraries are outlined for each of the years. A few corrections in localities to McVaugh’s (1970) gazetteer are noted where new information has come to light. Date and locality conflicts are also explicitly noted in case the collections in question have been cited in print or duplicates with additional data are discovered. A sparse scattering of date problems occur throughout the First Survey collections, probably due to it being easier to remember where a plant was collected than precisely when, and partly due to errors on the re-copied labels so common on MICH specimens. In the case of conflicting dates and localities, i.e., where the Survey party was apparently in two places at once, the locality based on the preponderance of specimens collected on the date is assumed to be correct. Such out of place dates are few, in contrast to the large number of specimens with self-consistent dates and localities. There is no evidence that the Survey parties ever split up and collected plants in two places at once. In many cases, a simple misreading of numbers that may appear similar in hastily written dates would seem to explain things adequately.

Collecting activities are discussed by year, which is normally clear. About two dozen collections from GH, MICH, NA, and NY, however, are from the First Survey but have insufficient information even to assign a year. Doubtless, a modest number of collections remain yet to be discovered, especially at GH, NA, or NY, though unfortunately, GH sheets often have limited data. A few collections in GH and NY, e.g., of Asclepias purpurascens and Galium concinnum (GH), or Liparis loeselii (NY), are dated 1840, but are apparently First Survey collections. These are probably duplicates of the extensive 1838 collections and, as suggested by Voss (on the label of the Asclepias sheet at GH), the date is likely that of receipt or accessioning. The First Survey collected very few plants in 1840, all of them by Douglass Houghton from the Upper Peninsula.

Abram Sager, wearing his zoological hat, also collected animals, presumably both in 1837 and 1838, a very few of which are extant, but unfortunately, their accompanying data is simply a year. Sager (1839) did present a zoological report, but it is a simple list of names of vertebrates and mollusks.

Though on occasion, they gathered interesting plants en route, for the most part the method of operation of the First Survey botany parties clearly was to stop at a town where presumably they would have lodging, food, and workspace and make forays of varying lengths from their base. Thus, the itineraries for 1837 and 1838 are centered about towns. Wright (1839) noted the difficulties transporting the “bulky apparatus” for pressing plants, so their methods of operating made sense.

While McVaugh (1970) suggested that travel in the interior of the state was difficult and surveys “were possible only along the major roads that crossed the state from east to west,” in fact, the southern two tiers of counties already had a modest transportation system by the time of the First Survey, at least during the summer. It is not clear how the First Survey chose its routes, but of course, roads and river navigation were mapped. The contemporary Tourist’s Pocket Map of Michigan (Young 1835), (a portion of which is reproduced in Figure 15), for example, laid out the land transportation system clearly, including main roads and secondary roads or trails, as well as, elsewhere on the map, regular stagecoach routes and steamboat schedules. In addition, the map shows most of the place names, including named prairies, found on the labels of the First Survey collections. Only Houghton’s travels, in contrast to the First Survey parties in southern Michigan, were mostly by canoe and involved camping in the wilds, especially in northern Michigan.

Figure 15.

Southern Michigan portion of Young’s (1835) “The tourist’s pocket map of Michigan.” Note that this map predated the “Toledo War,” and shows the northern part of Ohio, including Toledo, as part of Michigan. Image courtesy David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Stanford University.

Collecting itinerary of the 1837 First Survey Botany Party

June 12 to June 20: Wayne County Major localities mentioned on labels include Brownstown, Gibraltar, and Grosse Isle, all close to each other at the mouth of the Detroit River. A few more than 20 specimens from this area survive, not counting the scantily labeled grasses and sedges noted above. Two localities remain somewhat puzzling. A June 16 collection of Lysimachia thyrsiflora (MICH) from the inappropriately named “Squaw Island, Detroit River” perhaps is from what is now known as Mamajuda Island or Mamajuda Shoal, near Grosse Isle; an apparent duplicate (NA) merely says “Gibraltar.” An 1837 collection of Potentilla anserina lacking a specific date from “Rattlesnake Island,” was plausibly collected in mid-June, based on the condition of the plant. This location is uncertain but may also be a forgotten name for an island near the mouth of the Detroit River. There is a colloquially named “Rat Island”²¹ near the mouth of the Huron River (42°02′04.2″N, 83°11′24.4″W) ca. 6.5 km south of Gibraltar, which might be a contraction from a long ago Rattlesnake Island.²²

June 21 to July 1: The Survey party collected about 20 plants in Monroe County, probably from sorties based out of the town of Monroe, as well as collections made en route to and from Monroe.²³

July 2: Sager and his party were presumably traveling from Monroe along the River Raisin to Dundee and collected no plants.

July 3: About 5 collections were made at Dundee, Monroe County, with some habitats noting they were collecting along the River Raisin, e.g., “Riverbanks, dry and sandy” or “Sandy banks of the Raisin River.”

July 4: Traveling from Dundee to Adrian, Lenawee County, already in 1837 a significant village and recently named the County seat; no plants collected.

July 6 to July 8: At Adrian, Lenawee County, the party collected about a dozen plants.

July 9 to July 11: The party traveled west to intersect the Chicago Road, perhaps by the road to Tecumseh Lenawee County. However, the next stop of the party, as recorded by collections, was not until Jonesville, Hillsdale County, so their route is uncertain.

July 12 to July 25: The party was based at Jonesville, Hillsdale County, for about two weeks, and a few more than 50 collections survive from here. Most collections are labeled either Jonesville or Hillsdale [County].²⁴ They evidently found the area diverse and interesting. Notable collections include a number of savanna or barrens species, e.g., Cirsium hillii (Figure 16), Baptisia tinctoria, now very rare in the area, and some unusual orchids such as Platanthera hookeri, now apparently extirpated from southern Michigan.²⁵

Figure 16.

Cirsium hillii in an open area in an Oak Barrens dominated by Schizachyrium scoparium, Symphyotrichum spp., and Solidago spp. ca. 6.7 km WSW of Jonesville, Hillsdale County, close to where Abram Sager gathered this species near Jonesville on July 17, 1837. Photo by Stan Kuchta, June 2007.

July 26 to August 1: After Jonesville, the party continued west, and about 25 collections were made in Branch County, dated July 27²⁶ through August 1. When a specific locality was given, it was Mason or Masonville on the Coldwater River, now within Coldwater (Johnson 1879), which was probably their base. However, there is ambiguity here as to what the locality “Branch” on the label means, as from 1831 to 1840, the now vanished village of Branch was the county seat (Romig 1972). It was on the Chicago Road about five km SW of present-day Coldwater. All August 1 collections are merely labeled “Branch,” and the earliest dated collections from adjacent St. Joseph County, from Sherman (now Sturgis) are also dated August 1; it may be that the Survey party crossed the county line on August 1 (with Sherman perhaps referring more generally to Sherman Township).

August 1 to August 3: The party was collecting in the vicinity of Sturgis, St. Joseph County. Slightly more than 20 specimens have survived, including from the Sturges [Sturgis] Prairie.

August 4 to August 23: The party moved to White Pigeon, St. Joseph County, where they collected extensively in that vicinity for nearly three weeks, especially at Pigeon Prairie, from where about 40 plant specimens are known. At the Pigeon Prairie and also the Sturgis Prairie, they gathered many plants, including remarkable prairie species, some not collected in Michigan after the First Survey.²⁷

August 24 to August 25: The Survey party traveled from White Pigeon north to the Kalamazoo area. On August 24, besides White Pigeon, the Survey party collected in the “S. E. cor.” of Cass County (label on sheet of Physostegia virginiana, NA 0080949) and also gathered Acer saccharinum from “Banks of the St. Joseph River” in Cass County (MICH 1334785). No collections are known dated August 25, and on this day and doubtlessly also August 24 and 26, they were presumably traveling north by boat on the St. Joseph River towards Kalamazoo.

August 26 to September 5: Kalamazoo County, with about 15 specimens collected during this period, all saying simply Kalamazoo. Here they collected Buchnera americana, also not collected in Michigan after the First Survey.²⁸

September 6 to 10: The trip back to Detroit was rapid, presumably following the road from Kalamazoo through Jackson and Ann Arbor. A collection of Gentianopsis crinita from Washtenaw County dated only September 1837, but obviously collected in early to mid-September, was likely gathered en route by Sager, as also a September 10 collection of Verbesina alternifolia from Dearborn, Wayne County. Though Houghton and Hubbard were still in Detroit on this day, they were busy preparing for a trip to Saginaw Bay, for which they left September 13, heading to Royal Oak (Oakland County), and were unlikely to be collecting plants.

Travel by the 1837 First Survey Botany Party

We can surmise that the party traveled from Detroit to Brownstown on the Detroit-Buffalo steamboat, which stopped at the mouth of the Detroit River (Young 1835), though they could have taken the well-known early stage route following Hull’s Trace, one of Michigan’s earliest improved roads, dating to the war of 1812 (Halsey 2000). At their first stop, they were probably based at Brownstown or Gibraltar, at the river mouth, and presumably hired a boat from Gibraltar to access the nearby islands, especially Grosse Isle. From Brownstown, there was a stage road to Monroe (Young 1835), though they could also have traveled this route by boat. From Monroe, they presumably traveled on the road along the south side of the River Raisin to Blissfield, and north to Adrian (Young 1835). From Adrian, their route likely took them to Tecumseh to intersect the Chicago Road, which followed the Indigenous Sauk Trail (Mason (1987), the route roughly following present-day US 12, or possibly they followed the trail marked on Young (1835) to intersect the Chicago Road near the Hillsdale County line. Even then, there was regular stagecoach service from Detroit to Chicago along the Chicago Road and associated lodging facilities in the towns. Along the Chicago Road, they stopped at Jonesville, then the vicinity of Coldwater, then Sturgis (then known as Sherman) and White Pigeon. From White Pigeon, they continued along the Chicago Road as far as the St. Joseph River (near Mottville), the river here forming the boundary between Cass and St. Joseph County from near Mottville, south to the Indiana state line. Along the river (Figure 17), they collected floodplain species. The St. Joseph River was a major waterway at this time, with substantial boat traffic at least as far north as what is now Three Rivers (Knoblock 1925) and, on a smaller scale, closer to Kalamazoo via the Portage River. They would have traveled north by river for some distance to intersect a road to Kalamazoo, which was their last collecting stop before heading back to Detroit along the well-known road connecting Detroit to Kalamazoo—the “Territorial Road” (Mason 1987) following the St. Joseph Trail of the Indigenous Peoples. It does not appear from the reconstructed itinerary that the party ever returned to Detroit during the summer, though of course, individual members may have done so.

Figure 17.

West bank of St. Joseph River near Mottville, St. Joseph County. Floodplain dominated by Acer saccharinum, Ulmus americana, Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Quercus macrocarpa, Carya ovata, Gleditsia triacanthos, Celtis occidentalis, Tilia americana, and Platanus occidentalis with an understory of Lindera benzoin, Staphylea trifolia, Zanthoxylum americanum, Cercis canadensis, and Asimina triloba. This is just north of where the First Survey collected Acer saccharinum and Physostegia virginiana on August 24, 1837. This Floodplain Forest probably looks much as it did when the First Survey botanists explored it in 1837. Photo by author, May 17, 2025.

Names of towns are given in the itinerary, but of special interest to botanists are the named prairies they visited, especially the “Sturges Prairie” and the “Pigeon Prairie” in St. Joseph County These are illustrated on Young’s (1835) map, both centered on the modern towns, and given generalized, more or less circular outlines, the Sturgis Prairie about 2.5 to 3 km in diameter and the White Pigeon Prairie which was somewhat larger, perhaps 5.5 km in its longest dimension. These correspond quite closely to the prairies as outlined in Comer et al. (1995) and Albert et al. (2008).

1837 Summer Collections by Douglass Houghton

While the 1837 Survey party traveled largely along roads through the southern two tiers of counties, Houghton traveled mostly by water on the Maple and Grand Rivers, there being few roads in that more northerly portion of the state. Houghton left Detroit about July 4, heading west to intersect the Grand River at Jackson, conducting geological investigations along the way. He then traveled by boat on the Grand River and its tributaries for much of the rest of the trip. McVaugh (1970) surmised, surely correctly, that Bela Hubbard traveled with Houghton and not with Abram Sager’s party, as his duties were primarily geological—he was Assistant Geologist in the First Survey (Berg 1967). While the itineraries of the formal First Survey field parties must be reconstructed from specimens, Houghton left clear field notes of his own travels, and we know his routes in detail, even though he collected few plants. Besides geology, Houghton’s 1837 trip was mostly investigating salt springs, in-state sources of salt being of great importance to pioneer Michigan and a focus of Houghton’s early work.

In the course of sampling a number of salt springs on this trip, Houghton made plant collections at a few of them, including Triglochin palustris from the Clinton Salt Works²⁹ on July 21, with an original field label apparently in Bela Hubbard’s hand, visibly stained with stem and leaf outlines from having been pressed with the plant (Figure 18). On July 23, Houghton and his party were at a “Salt Works” along the Maple River in Gratiot County (Sec. 26–27, T9N, R2W according to Houghton’s notes, SW of Ashley), where he gathered Eleocharis rostellata, Samolus parviflorus, Schoenoplectus americanus (introgressed with S. pungens), and the alga Chara vulgaris L. (MICH 677284). On July 31, Houghton visited the state salt reserve along the Grand River, now in Wyoming (Kent County) at Sec. 3, T6N R12W, where he again gathered Samolus parviflorus, Triglochin palustris, and the Chara (MICH 677283). This latter salt spring is marked on Young’s (1835) map (see Figure 15). In his work on salt springs, Houghton often included the Township, Range, and section number, though unfortunately, his are the only First Survey collections so well documented, even though southern Michigan was already surveyed at this time.

Figure 18.

Probable tattered original field label in Bela Hubbard’s hand, with leaf and stem stains from being pressed with the plant, for Triglochin palustris collected by Douglass Houghton on July 21, 1837. The label says: “Clinton salt works, Clinton Co. (Salt Marsh)” Photo by the author.

On August 2, Houghton left Grand Rapids, reaching the Grand River mouth at the shore of Lake Michigan at Grand Haven, Ottawa County, where he collected Pterospora andromedea.³⁰ Houghton did not retrace his steps but, based on his field notes, traveled from the mouth of the Grand River to the Muskegon River, then back to Grand Rapids, staying there for a few days before leaving August 8 to travel up the Thornapple River, crossing overland via Yankee Springs and through Gull Prairie, to reach Kalamazoo on August 10, two weeks before the First Survey field party arrived, and from there back to Detroit, arriving late in the afternoon on August 14. He collected no plants on his quick return trip, so far as known.

Finally, Houghton collected Goodyera pubescens near White Rock, Huron County, on October 8, 1837, on the way back to Detroit from a fall trip to Saginaw with Bela Hubbard (Hubbard 1887). This specimen has an unfortunate twist, as the contemporary label by Hubbard leaves no doubt that Houghton collected this evergreen species, which would have been quite conspicuous in the fall. Unfortunately, the plants on the sheet are in full flower, impossible in October, so presumably there was a mix-up, probably in the 1870’s or 1880’s when many collections were processed, as detailed by McVaugh (1970). A single lichen collection, Usnea dasopoga (Ach.) Nyl. “Lake Huron, Oct. 1837,” (MICH 132441) also survives from this fall trip.

Collecting itinerary of the 1838 First Survey Botany Party

May 20 to June 11: Port Huron, St. Clair County, was the first and a very important stop for the Survey party. We know of about 110 specimens collected here, including, unlike in 1837, a sampling of the spring flora, such as Trillium, Viola, and even the rare Plantago cordata. Besides the general vicinity of Port Huron, including the shores of Lake Huron and the St. Clair River, the party made a couple longer excursions, including a trip June 8–9 to a “sphagnous swamp” and “wet woods” “6 miles below Port Huron,” where they gathered typical acid soil wetland and peatland plants such as Kalmia polifolia and Ilex mucronata, and a visit June 11 to the Black River at “Clyde” (near where present-day Wadhams Rd. crosses the Black River).³²

June 12 to June 18: Traveling from Port Huron to Ann Arbor and doubtless restocking supplies in Detroit for the extended field time during the rest of the summer. No collections are known from these dates.

June 19 to July 2: Collecting in the vicinity of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, The Survey Party would have had a comfortable setting for collecting here, and a few more than 200 collections survive from this extended stop. Here, the Survey party collected specimens upon which Galium concinnum (Figure 19) was, in part, based (Torrey and Gray 1841–1843). As with their time at Port Huron, besides collecting in the Ann Arbor area, especially along the Huron River, the party made excursions farther into the countryside. This included on June 21 collecting near the south end of Whitmore Lake in Northfield Twp. with a few sheets noted as from across the county line in adjacent Livingston County. On June 23, they visited a “sphagnous swamp”³³ around lakes “2 miles west” of Ann Arbor; and on June 28 visited Pleasant Lake and the “western part of Washtenaw County.”³⁴

Figure 19.

Galium concinnum, Olmsted County Minnesota, July 2, 2024. Photo Nate Martineau.

July 3 to July 4: Travel from Ann Arbor to Jackson.

July 5 to July 18:³⁵ Collections made in Jackson County, at Jackson and vicinity. A few more than 120 collections are now known, most saying merely “Jackson,” although a few note “Grand River” or “Grand River bank.” The city name of Jackson appears as “Jacksonburgh” on a few labels.³⁶ On July 17– 18, as well as collections from “Jackson” a couple collections are noted from Manchester, Washtenaw County (only ca. 8 km E of the Jackson County line) including Potamogeton amplifolius (GH) from the “River Raisin.” A sheet of Dysphania botrys dated July 16 (NA 0080831) is also attributed to Washtenaw County and may have been collected on the same visit to Manchester (if the date is not in error).

July 19 to July 20: Traveling from Jackson through Marshall to Kalamazoo. About 16 collections were made on July 20, most from Calhoun County; one noting “road from Jackson to Kalamazoo,” several specifically from Marshall, and a few from “Kalamazoo.”³⁷

July 21 to August 8: Collecting in Kalamazoo County This was one of their most productive stops with more than 150 collections known. The Survey party was based out of Kalamazoo, and collections were made on sorties into the county, though, as usual, many labels simply say “Kalamazoo.” Locations that are more specific include a few collections from the “Kalamazoo River at Kalamazoo” and “near a lake 3 miles east of the village [of Kalamazoo].” On July 30, they collected several rarities at “Austin’s Lake.” Most interestingly, they collected July 21–26 at Grand Prairie, which was located just west of the present center of Kalamazoo (= “Kalamazoo Prairie” on Young’s map, Figure 15) and on August 1–2 at Gull Prairie or Gull Prairie Lake (or Gull Lake); the prairie located just W of Gull Lake. At these two sites they documented a suite of tall grass prairie plants, many now rare or extirpated, including Baptisia leucophaea (see cover photo), Bouteloua curtipendula, Coreopsis palmata, Echinacea purpurea, Linum sulcatum, Scleria triglomerata, and Silphium integrifolium.³⁸

August 9: The survey party was traveling from Kalamazoo to St. Joseph; all the 11 collections seen have the location simply as “Van Buren County” except Stachys hyssopifolia, from “Kalamazoo” (NA 0080957).

August 10 to August 20: Gathering nearly 60 specimens in Berrien County, based at St. Joseph (August 10–16), Berrien (now Berrien Springs) (August 17), and Niles (August 18–20). At St. Joseph, the Survey party collected many beach and dune plants along the Lake Michigan shore, as well as wetland and rich forest plants from along the St. Joseph and Paw Paw Rivers. They were clearly focused on the rich woods of the St. Joseph River valley and collected only a few species of “openings” (e.g., Aureolaria pedicularia, from “dry openings”).³⁹

August 20: The Survey Party traveled from Niles, Berrien County, to Edwardsburg, Cass County. The nearly 20 collections on this day include a few from Niles, some labeled Berrien County, and some labeled Cass County, including a collection from Edwardsburg. One collection, Eragrostis frankii, has the location as “Berrien or Cass” Counties. and the habitat “roadside” and it is likely that many of these collections were made en route.⁴⁰

August 21 to August 28: Collecting in the vicinity of Edwardsburg⁴¹, Cass County. Here, the Survey party collected unusual prairie plants such as Agalinis auriculata, Digitaria filiformis, and Silphium integrifolium, habitats given variously as “prairie” or “openings,” with about 70 collections in total. One label gives the location as “Edward’s Prairie,” but this label was written by Elizabeth C. Allmendinger in the 1870s or 1880s and the name may be an anachronism; neither contemporary maps nor contemporary labels used Edwards Prairie, though the town was known as Beardsley’s Prairie⁴² in the 1820s (Romig 1972). Most collection labels say either Edwardsburg or only Cass County.

August 28: About 12 collections exist from this day, both from Edwardsburg and Cassopolis (or simply Cass County), so the party presumably traveled the short distance between these localities on August 28.

August 29 to September 2: Traveling between Cassopolis, Cass County, and Centreville, St. Joseph County. The single known collection in this period, from August 31, Leersia virginica, merely says St. Joseph [County].

September 3 to September 12: About 30 collections were made in St. Joseph County, all from Centreville, when a specific place name was given.⁴³

September 13 to September 16?: Traveling from the vicinity of Centreville to Clinton, Lenawee County. The timing here is uncertain. Collections at Clinton begin September 20, but the collection of Verbena simplex from near Wolf Lake, Lenawee County, is only ca. 15 km W of Clinton, but is dated September 14.

September 17? to September 26: About 15 collections are known from Clinton⁴⁴, Lenawee County; more precise localities, if given, being mostly “margin of the river” or “low grounds along the river [i.e., the River Raisin].”

Collecting Itinerary of the 1839 First Survey Botany Party in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

July 22 to July 27: Mackinac Island. Mackinac County. Collections made by George H. Bull before Houghton arrived, including Abies balsamea, Amelanchier laevis, Corydalis aurea, and Linnaea borealis, all dated July 22–24.

July 28 to July 31: Houghton arrived on Mackinac Island July 28, and a few additional collections of interesting species were made by Houghton and Bull, including Euphorbia helioscopia, Mimulus glabratus var. jamesii, Rumex triangulivalvis, and Juniperus horizontalis. These are all dated July 28–30. Lonicera hirsuta was also collected at Mackinac Island by Bull or Houghton and Bull but lacks a date.⁴⁶

August 1: Houghton, Bull, and their party left Mackinac Island and traveled east along the north shore of Lake Huron.

August 2: The party reached the southwestern part of Drummond Island, Chippewa County, where they collected the typical calcareous Great Lakes shoreline species Hypericum kalmianum as well as Halenia deflexa.

August 3: The party traveled along the south and east shores of Drummond Island, stopping to collect Asplenium ruta-muraria at its only known Michigan occurrence, on Marblehead, as well as Pellaea glabella. They camped at the northeastern corner that evening, and along their route they collected the Great Lakes endemic Carex scirpoidea subsp. convoluta as well as C. crawei, C. aquatilis, Clinopodium arkansanum, and Trisetum spicatum.

August 4: They reached the north side of Drummond Island, and near that shore collected Polypodium virginianum and Cystopteris tenuis.

August 5 to August 6: From the north side of Drummond Island, the party traveled in Canada through the St. Joseph’s Channel of the St. Mary’s River; they camped on the Canadian shore the night of August 5. Their route on August 6 was along the Canadian shore in Algoma District, Ontario, and all the specimens noted have the habitat “rocks” and are typical of the acidic rocks of the Canadian Shield along that shore.⁴⁷

August 7: The party traveled from a camp on Sugar Island, through Lake George to Sault Ste. Marie; they gathered Spinulum annotinum that day, probably near the north end of Sugar Island, Chippewa County.

August 8 to August 9: At Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County; no collections known (but see Veronica serpyllifolia in Appendix 1).

August 10: On their return from Sault Ste. Marie, the party passed through the Detour Channel stopping at the west end of Drummond Island, Chippewa County, where they gathered, presumably on the exposed shore, Ranunculus reptans, and reached the Les Cheneaux Islands to camp.

August 11: Traveled from their camp among the Les Cheneaux Islands to Mackinac Island and collected Rubus parviflorus along the way on Goose Island, Mackinac County.

August 12 to August 13: Back at Mackinac Island; no collections known.

August 14: The party traveled from Mackinac Island to the north shore of Lake Michigan at St. Ignace and then west, camping 14.5 km west of Point Aux Chenes, Mackinac County; collected Dendrolycopodium dendroideum and Taxus canadensis.

August 15: Traveled along the north shore and camped 5 km west of the mouth of the Menococien [Millecoquins] River, western Mackinac County; collected the type specimen of Solidago houghtonii between here and their previous night’s camp.

August 16: Traveled from western Mackinac County along the shore to the east side of Point Souchoix, [Seul Choix Point], Schoolcraft County. Collected Tanacetum bipinnatum subsp. huronense.

August 17: Collected Carex gynocrates and Selaginella selaginoides in a “sphagnous swamp” at Seul Choix Point, Schoolcraft County, then traveled to camp near the mouth of the Manistique River.

August 18 to August 19: Traveled west along the shore and spent the night of August 19 at Peninsula Point on the Stonington Peninsula (Figure 20); no collections known.

Figure 20.

Peninsula Point, Stonington Peninsula, Delta County, where Houghton and the First Survey Party camped August 19, 1839, showing the rock outcrops and Great Lakes shores that Houghton enjoyed, with a Limestone Bedrock Lakeshore and low Limestone Lakeshore Cliff, backed by windswept Thuja occidentalis. Photo by the author, July 10, 2025.

August 20: Exploring Little Bay de Noc, Delta County; collected Pinus banksiana and Salix candida.

August 21: Collected Polygonum ramosissimum on “sand, north shore Green Bay,” probably near where they spent the night, about 24 km southwest of present-day Escanaba, Delta County.

August 22 to August 23: Traveled to the mouth of the Menominee River, Menominee County, where they collected in the vicinity on August 22 Artemisia ludoviciana and Physalis longifolia and, on August 23, Tsuga canadensis.

August 24 to August 25: No collections known from these dates, which were presumably spent exploring the geology of the Green Bay area based out of Menominee.

August 26: On “Louse Island, Mich.” Houghton and Bull collected their last plant of 1839, Cryptogramma stelleri, but this is now called Rock Island and is in Door County, Wisconsin (McVaugh 1970). From here, they presumably returned as quickly as possible to Mackinac Island to catch the steamboat back to Detroit.

As in the previous two years, a very few collections dated April and May 1839 from Detroit or Ann Arbor exist. A Detroit collection of Lonicera canadensis dated April 23, 1839, and an Ann Arbor collection of Packera aurea dated May 15, 1839, fit into this “spring collections” rubric of McVaugh (1970). The Packera had Houghton as collector on a label written by E. C. Allmendinger. However, George H. Bull was in charge of plant collecting in 1839, and both were very likely gathered by him, most certainly the Packera, as Houghton had left Detroit for Pontiac on May 15, 1839, according to his notes (Houghton 1829–1845). Populus tremuloides was collected both in flower and in leaf, similar to Bull’s later Salix collections. As McVaugh (1970) noted, Allmendinger often attributed plants collected by others to Houghton.

The First Survey in 1840: The End

As McVaugh (1970) noted, there was no systematic plant collecting in the 1840 season. The botanical and zoological departments of the First Survey were abolished by the legislature on March 28, 1840. The few incidental plant collections were all made by Houghton while traveling along the Lake Superior shore for primarily geological investigations. Bela Hubbard (1887) provided commentary of the travels with Houghton on the south shore of Lake Superior for this year. Unfortunately, no botanical comments were among his natural history and geological observations.

Briefly, after taking a steamboat from Detroit, the party left Mackinac Island May 26, arriving at Sault Ste. Marie May 30, and embarking to Lake Superior June 1. The party traveled along the south shore of Lake Superior, collecting Kalmia polifolia on Whitefish Point June 10 and reaching the Pictured Rocks (Figure 21) and Grand Island June 15, there collecting Rubus parviflorus. Houghton collected Polystichum lonchitis and Ranunculus reptans at Lac Bay de Gres (Bete Grise Bay) on June 30 and reached Copper Harbor on July 3. A major goal was exploring the Keweenaw Peninsula for copper, and Houghton explored the interior of the Keweenaw for a several days (Figure 22). The party proceeded to Ontonagon to visit again the famous Ontonagon Boulder, thence to La Pointe (Madeline Island, Ashland County, Wisconsin) and finally to Isle Royale, where Houghton visited the American Fur Company, based at Checker Point, Siskiwit Bay, on August 3, 1840, and collected Neottia cordata, the first herbarium specimen collected from Isle Royale. No other collections have been discovered as yet, except for a specimen of Ranunculus hispidus var. caricetorum with no label data but “Lake Superior, Houghton.”

Figure 21.

Pictured Rocks, Alger County, Chapel Rock (La Chapelle) in 1840, illustration from Hubbard (1887).

Figure 22.

View from the Cliff Ranges in 1840, interior Keweenaw County, illustration from Hubbard (1887).

The end of the Botanical Department of the First Survey in 1840 did not end Houghton’s contributions to science. He continued as State Geologist until his tragic death in 1845 at the young age of 36, drowning in Lake Superior near Eagle Harbor, Keweenaw County, after his boat capsized during a severe fall snowstorm. During this time, he also played major roles in non-botanical fields as well, including as Professor of Geology, Mineralogy, and Chemistry in the University of Michigan, a position he had held since 1838, and Mayor of Detroit in 1842–43 (Rintala 1954). However, the legislative shortsightedness in eliminating botany and zoology from the Survey surely was a blow to Houghton. The Neottia cordata from Isle Royale was the last plant collected by Houghton, marking the end of an era.

PLANT COMMUNITIES FROM SOUTHERN MICHIGAN

The First Survey collections long predated the formal discipline of plant ecology. However, the publication of the Atlas of Early Michigan’s Forests, Grasslands, and Wetlands (Albert et al. 2008) and A Field Guide to the Natural Communities of Michigan (Cohen et al. 2015) offers the opportunity to examine the sites the First Survey collected in the context of a concise, uniform vegetation system for the state. We can, to a limited extent, interpret the floristic composition of the communities at this early date if some habitat data are on the specimen labels. Labels of early plant collections are often quite abbreviated, but contemporary labels by John Wright, and especially by George H. Bull, are surprisingly expansive for their time and often included concise habitats. While many of the contemporary labels at MICH were discarded and the data transcribed into a standard condensed label format, a typical, though unfortunate, curatorial practice of the time, most specimens at NA have contemporary labels written by George H. Bull or Bela Hubbard.

About 650 collections from the First Survey have habitat information on the labels. Often, however, this is but a single word, commonly “Meadow,” “Marsh,” “Roadside,” “Swamp,” “Wet,” or “Woods.” Many habitats were also positional, such as “Banks of a small lake,” or “Margin of Grand River,” giving little information about the environment, whether shady or sunny, dry or moist. Habitats were very rarely described in terms of the dominant species; out of all the hundreds of habitats, “Beech woods” (for a collection of Epifagus virginiana), “Burr-oak opening” or “Oak opening,” “Dry cedar woods,” “Mossy sandy cedar woods,” “Sphagnous swamp,” “Sphagnous tamarack swamp,” and “Tamarack swamp” were the only examples noted. While a number of undoubtedly accurate reports of species exist in Wright (1839) and Eaton and Wright (1840), and a few other early sources, they are not utilized, as habitats are not stated, nor are the few other collections available from this time, as they also lack habitats or have habitats described differently from the First Survey collections.

While the First Survey utilized the same words as modern botanists, there have been some shifts in meaning. Lakeshores, stream and river banks, and the multitude of similar positional habitats are clear. “Prairie” was unambiguously reserved for treeless grasslands, and was not used to refer to marshes, as perhaps implied by McVaugh (1970), but “plain” described flat lands (like our modern usage in sand plain or clay plain) with no vegetation connotation. The term barrens was almost never used; the sole exception was Ranunculus fascicularis collected from “dry barrens” in Washtenaw County. “Openings” variously modified (by e.g., “dry” or “sandy”) referred to open areas among treed habitats, a subset of what we would call savanna. The term “meadow” or sometimes “wet meadow” was mostly used to refer to wetter habitats such as fens, sedge meadows, clearings in river bottoms, or similar settings. “Bog” or “boggy ground” was used somewhat indiscriminately or to refer to quaking or ‘squishy’ habitats, such as floating mats, various types of fen, bog, or marsh. “Marsh” was a common habitat term, used about 60 times, sometimes in the modern sense. The word “fen” was never used, though rarely “springy ground” appears. What we now consider bog was called “sphagnous swamps.” Otherwise “swamp” was used indiscriminately for both forested and open wetlands, including fens, although rarely dominants were noted, e.g., “tamarack swamp,” and “swampy woods.” Habitat terms not infrequently told of edaphic conditions, rather than plant communities, e.g., “damp sandy soil.” In fact, soil was clearly very important to the First Survey participants, with a strong focus on lighter, sandy soils; the words “sand” or “sandy” were used over 110 times, but “clay” was mentioned only three times, and “marl” and “gravelly” only once each. In contrast, the word “salt” was used five times. The terms “loam,” “muck,” “peat,” and “silt” were never used.

Despite the abbreviated nature of the habitat descriptions, they were recorded by people with science backgrounds during a scientific survey focused on soils, vegetation, and environmental features. Furthermore, at least within each year, they were presumably consistently applied by the same individual or team. Thus they can be informative despite their brevity. Occasionally, the habitat descriptions on the labels give additional hints of the ecological setting, e.g., “border of marsh.”

The discussions below of the natural communities are organized using the terminology of class and group outlined in Cohen et al. (2015), with the names of the plant community types capitalized for clarity in the discussions following. Because collections made by Douglass Houghton were vastly fewer than those of the First Survey parties, and from different areas of the state, ecological inferences from Houghton’s First Survey collections are dealt with under a separate heading.

Forests, Barrens, Openings, and Prairies (Terrestrial Class)

The word forest never appears on First Survey labels, but “woods” was a common habitat, appearing over 150 times. At first glance this appears straightforward, but examination of species noted as from “woods” disclosed that caution was needed. Besides the many species expected from forested sites of various kinds, plants with the habitat “woods” or “dry woods” included sun-loving species like Agrostis scabra, Dichanthelium leibergii, Elymus canadensis, Galium boreale, Juncus bufonius, Lilium philadelphicum, Phlox pilosa, and Sphenopholis obtusata. These are species we think of now as plants of open or edge habitats. Many plants we now think of as being conservative closed canopy forest understory plants, such as Aplectrum hyemale, Panax quinquefolius, Trillium erectum, T. undulatum, Hydrophyllum appendiculatum, and H. canadense, had their habitats sometimes described in a way we today might consider redundant; “shady woods,” “deep shady woods,” “shady damp woods,” or “thick damp woods.” This may also suggest that the usual “woods” of the time were, more often, sunny or open.

Though the First Survey did venture some into “deep shady woods,” there are species of that habitat missing that they could plausibly have encountered. For example, although they collected Platanthera hookeri several times, they never encountered P. orbiculata, a species of richer, moister, dense forests. A few other conspicuous large species of such rich, dense mesophytic (but not necessarily river-associated) forests such as Dryopteris goldieana, Hybanthus concolor, Phegopteris hexagonoptera, or even the shrub Dirca palustris, were also not encountered by the First Survey parties in southern Michigan. Were such denser forests less common in the 1830s, perhaps due to a more regular fire regime?

It seems clear that the use of the word “woods” by the First Survey at least sometimes included a more open, sunny plant community than our present concept, although more forested than an “opening.” Presumably, these more open “woods” would be what now we might call various types of savanna. It certainly suggests that this savanna habitat was common at the time. However, because modifiers were only occasionally provided (most of the time “woods” was the entire habitat), it was not feasible to untangle forests from savannas or resolve forests into the different types noted by Cohen et al. (2015). Because the Survey parties started late—even the 1838 party did not begin until May 20—some common spring ephemerals likely were simply missed except for the occasional collection from the Ann Arbor-Detroit area before the Survey parties set out; these, however, were even more skimpily labeled than usual.

Despite the spring ephemeral flora being underrepresented, the First Survey clearly collected in various types of mesophytic and drier forests. They collected many forest sedges, even though they were collecting too late in the season for optimal fruiting of some common species. Nevertheless, the Survey parties from 1837–1839 gathered a total of 63 Carex species. Besides forest understory species of Carex, they gathered other typical understory species such as Anemone quinquefolia, Aplectrum hyemale, Brachyelytrum erectum, Campanulastrum americanum, Collinsia verna, Collinsonia canadensis, Eurybia macrophylla, Homalosorus pycnocarpos, Hydrophyllum appendiculatum, H. canadense, H. virginianum, Hylodesmum glutinosum, H. nudiflorum, Medeola virginiana, Oryzopsis asperifolia, Patis racemosa, Polygonatum biflorum, P. pubescens, Polymnia canadensis, Sanguinaria canadensis, Thalictrum dioicum, T. thalictroides, Trillium erectum, T. grandiflorum, T. undulatum, Uvularia grandiflora, U sessilifolia, and Viola canadensis. Though it is impossible to sort out forest types from the scant habitats given by the Survey botanists, many of these species are common and characteristic plants of Mesic Southern Forests or DryMesic Southern Forests. Most of the earliest spring ephemerals were collected during their 1838 stay near Port Huron.

The Survey parties also certainly knew that Michigan’s southern river bottoms had a distinctive and interesting flora, as they collected along the Detroit, Grand, Huron, Paw Paw, Raisin, Rouge, and St. Joseph Rivers. Though missing some of the spring flora, the First Survey did obtain much of the flora that could be gathered in summer. This included characteristic species of more sunny river shores and open-canopied floodplain such as Amaranthus tuberculatus, Carex trichocarpa, Eragrostis hypnoides, Physostegia virginiana, and Saururus cernuus, as well as many distinctive and sometimes uncommon species visible later in the season in rich floodplain forests and their associated lower slopes such as Arisaema dracontium, Carex grayi, Diarrhena obovata, Euonymus atropurpureus, Jeffersonia diphylla (Figure 23), Lithospermum latifolium, and Staphylea trifolia. Many of these are characteristic species of Floodplain Forest listed in Cohen et al. (2015). With so much of their collecting done along rivers, along which they often traveled, many of the more widespread mesophytic forest species without habitat were probably also collected from forests along rivers, even if they are species not closely tied to forests along river systems.

Figure 23.

Jeffersonia diphylla near Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, at approximately the same stage of maturity as when the First Survey gathered the plant in the same general area in 1838. Photos by the author, April 30, 2024.

None of the many forest plants the First Survey collected is extirpated from Michigan. Though there has been regional extirpation of conservative species, especially in degraded settings, Michigan’s forests generally harbor the same native species now as in the 1830s. However, composition of forest understories has shifted dramatically due to fire suppression, altered hydrology, and more recently invasive species competition and deer herbivory. Many species are doubtless much less common now than in the 1830s and are likely still decreasing.

Openings

One of the most common habitat descriptions, “opening(s),” was used nearly 80 times, second only to “woods.” “Openings” were recorded from throughout southern Michigan, from St. Clair County, including the “dry oak openings” along the St. Clair River where Houghton stopped in 1832, to Wayne and Monroe Counties, west to Lake Michigan. The openings were often noted as “dry openings,” “sandy openings,” or rarely “damp openings,” but never “wet” or “swampy.” A few times we see “oak openings” or “dry oak openings.” Once, for an 1837 collection of the now extirpated Agalinis auriculata, the habitat was “burr-oak opening, sandy” on a contemporary label written by Bela Hubbard. This was clearly a more common habitat during their field work than today. According to Cohen et al. (2015), Bur Oak Plains is a habitat extirpated from Michigan. and Oak Openings critically imperiled.

The First Survey scientists were aware of the special character of this landscape and also of its proximate cause. It is beyond the scope of this review of specimens to delve into the numerous anecdotal reports of the nature of Michigan’s prairies and savannas. However, observations by the First Survey are notable, as they were based on several years of study by scientists rather than simply travelers passing though the areas. The openness of the terrain, and the ease of travel in it, occasioned glowing commentary by Houghton (1840): “The roads in the openings and plains offer to the traveler a variety of routes, with the choice of diverging at pleasure, the scattered oaks leaving sufficient space between for the passage of horses or carriages.” Bela Hubbard (1840) waxed positively poetic about the picturesque nature of Michigan’s savannas and prairies. He also defined the use of the word “opening” by the First Survey scientists, as well as corroborating Indigenous land management practices: “The ordinary character of the “openings” is that of a majestic orchard of stately oaks, which is frequently varied by small prairies, grassy lawns and clear lakes. These magnificent groves were, until within a few years, kept free from underbrush by the passage through them of annual fires, allowing successive growths of herbage to spring up luxuriantly, covering the surface with a profusion of wild flowers and verdure.” This is a clear description of Indigenous land stewardship using fire, including fire frequency. Finally, Hubbard (1840) noted of the landscape: “It resembles those exquisite pictures of park scenery, where the vision roams at will among the clumps of lofty oaks and over open glades, gemmed with flowers; while the distant woodland bounds the horizon, and the velvet-skirted lake gleams upon the eye as it reflects to light from the open prairie.”

All First Survey specimens with the word “opening” in the habitat are listed in Table 8. This list, of course, is not representative of any single habitat type as defined by Cohen et al. (2015), but across southern Michigan encompassed Lakeplain Oak Openings in southeastern Michigan, Bur Oak Plains in southwestern Michigan, and various other oak opening and oak barrens communities in the southern two tiers of counties. The collection of Ranunculus fascicularis from “dry barrens” surely denotes an Oak Barrens community, of which this is a characteristic species. Particularly in Monroe and Wayne counties, species like Calopogon tuberosus and Oxalis violacea, both collected from “damp sandy soil” likely came from a lakeplain wet or wet-mesic prairie opening. Unfortunately this area was not collected as intensively as those farther west, and mostly in 1837, when the labels were very abbreviated. A specimen of Calopogon collected by Nathan Folwell in southeastern Michigan with no precise locality provides more support, noting the habitat as “oak openings and sandy plains,” as also the early Houghton specimen of Lithospermum canescens from “dry oak openings” along the St. Clair River in St. Clair County.

TABLE 8

Floristic composition of “openings” as documented by all First Survey collections with the word “opening” in the habitat description, listed alphabetically.

Agalinis auriculata	Desmodium obtusum	Lobelia spicata
Agrimonia pubescens	Desmodium rotundifolium	Lupinus perennis
Agrostis scabra	Dichanthelium implicatum	Lysimachia quadrifolia
Aletris farinosa	Dichanthelium latifolium	Monarda fistulosa
Andropogon gerardii	Echinacea purpurea	Oenothera fruticosa
Andropogon virginicus	Elymus trachycaulus	Platanthera hookeri
Angelica venenosa	Equisetum ×nelsonii	Poa annua
Aristida purpurascens	Eragrostis cilianensis	Poa compressa
Asclepias purpurascens	Gentiana andrewsii	Pyrola elliptica
Asclepias tuberosa	Helianthus occidentalis	Quercus imbricaria
Aureolaria flava	Helianthus pauciflorus	Sabatia angularis
Aureolaria pedicularia	Helianthus strumosus	Schizachyrium scoparium
Aureolaria virginica	Hieracium gronovii	Scleria triglomerata
Baptisia tinctoria	Hieracium longipilum	Scutellaria incana
Bromus kalmii	Hieracium scabrum	Senna hebecarpa
Buchnera americana	Hieracium venosum	Silphium integrifolium
Cerastium velutinum	Hylodesmum nudiflorum	Solidago altissima
Coeloglossum viride	Koeleria macrantha	Solidago rigida
Coreopsis tripteris	Lechea mucronata	Sorgastrum nutans
Cyperus lupulinus	Lespedeza virginica	Spiranthes lacera
Danthonia spicata	Liatris scariosa	Symphyotrichum
Desmodium ciliare	Lilium michiganense	oolentangiense
Desmodium cuspidatum	Lilium philadelphicum	Symphyotrichum sericeum
Desmodium marilandicum	Lithospermum canescens	Thaspium chapmanii
Desmodium rotundifolium

These more open plant communities are now vastly reduced and also often highly degraded by invasives, grazing, and fire suppression; in fact, many are all but extirpated. There are a few surprises on this list, such as Coeloglossum viride, Platanthera hookeri, and Pyrola elliptica, which we now consider forest species. This is probably an indication that we do not fully understand the characteristics of these past habitats, and their structure may have been somewhat different from what we see in the few scattered remaining, often degraded, examples left in Michigan. Not surprisingly, these communities, collectively, were also the habitat of a number of species now extirpated in Michigan; some, in fact, were never documented as native plants after the First Survey, including Agalinis auriculata (Figure 24), Buchnera americana, Echinacea purpurea, and Scutellaria incana. Figure 25 shows an example of an “opening” on Walpole Island, Lambton County, Ontario that may approximate the former appearance of these communities.

Figure 24.

Agalinis auriculata at the Cressmoor Prairie Nature Preserve, Lake County Indiana. Photos by the author, September 2, 2023.

Figure 25.

Lakeplain prairie opening on Walpole Island, Lambton County, Ontario, dominated by Schizachyrium scoparium, with a diverse flora with many rare species. These sites have extant occurrences of two species extirpated in Michigan that were found by early collectors, Cerastium velutinum and Fimbristylis puberula. Such areas, on unceded Indigenous lands of the delta islands of the St. Clair River, have had neither a history of European agriculture nor fire suppression, and may represent an extant approximation to some of the Michigan “openings” explored by First Survey botanists. Photo by the author, July 12, 1986.

The frequency of use of the term “opening” as well as “woods” apparently often meaning a more open setting than present-day forests, paints a clear picture of an important portion of the landscape in the southernmost part of the state where the First Survey parties explored. Oak savanna was relatively widespread in the uplands, certainly more so than at present, merging irregularly into smaller, more open areas (openings and, occasionally, barrens) with a predominantly tall grass prairie flora. Denser forests were in settings where there was little or no fire. This certainly matches the findings of Chapman and Brewer (2008). However, it is likely that there is some bias here due to the few roads of the time following Indigenous American routes through areas where their land management practices, especially their use of fire in maintaining open habitats, might have been unusually prominent.

The presence of several alien grasses within these habitats strongly suggests that some of these prairie and savanna habitats, even before 1840, were utilized for farming and grazing. Non-native weeds noted included Poa annua, P. compressa, and Eragrostis cilianensis (Table 8). Overall, however, this list paints a picture of rich grassland communities in the most open areas, grading irregularly into oak savanna. The appearance of all three Aureolaria species on this list, which are parasitic on oaks, suggests the presence of oaks as strongly as the occasional use of “oak” or “burr-oak” opening. The most open areas were dominated by the prairie grasses Andropogon gerardii, A. virginicus, Aristida purpurascens, Bromus kalmii, Koeleria macrantha, Schizachyrium scoparium, and Sorghastrum nutans, but clearly also had a rich forb component of many plants now uncommon or rare, including Asclepias spp., Baptisia tinctoria, six species of Desmodium, several species of Helianthus and Hieracium, Solidago spp., and Symphyotrichum spp.

Publications Focused on the Michigan Flora

As McVaugh (1970) noted for the earliest collections “the publications based on the collections were scattered and often brief.” Published works focused on Michigan deriving from such early collections were sparse indeed. Nuttall’s Genera (Nuttall 1818), even though based on some Michigan fieldwork, contained relatively few Michigan references. Torrey (1822), reporting on plants collected by David Bates Douglass on the Cass Expedition, was the first publication to have a substantial number of Michigan reports. Douglass Houghton’s (1834) cumulative list for the two Schoolcraft Expeditions, also had many reports identifiable as from northern Michigan. The preface in Torrey and Gray’s first volume (1838–1840) of Flora of North America notes that “[f]rom Michigan, Dr. Houghton and Dr. Wright have furnished us with numerous plants” and also thanks Zina Pitcher for “for many plants collected in the northern part of Michigan.” McVaugh (1970), however, noted that Torrey and Gray’s Flora “contains very few references to Michigan plants,” which perhaps can be explained if the 1840 date on some First Survey collections at GH and NY is indeed the date of receipt by Gray or Torrey, as Voss surmised.

John Wright’s (1839) pioneering list has remained virtually unknown in the botanical community. However, it is the only list in this timeframe that is both restricted to Michigan and attempts to treat all vascular plants. The seminal work, however, is Eaton and Wright’s eighth edition of Eaton’s Manual (Eaton and Wright 1840). This, Wright’s most important published legacy, reported more plants for Michigan than his 1839 list, including Besseya bullii, described by Eaton in the Manual as Gymnandra bullii, and species like Carex oligosperma (as C. oakesii), thought by Wright to perhaps to be undescribed when his First Survey work ended. It also incorporated Houghton’s materials from the Schoolcraft Expeditions, the Bull and Houghton collections from 1839 north of the prior First Survey parties’ collecting, and reports from Dennis Cooley. Eaton notes in his preface (Eaton and Wright 1840):

Age, and declining vision, have admonished the author that he must call in the aid of youthful zeal, with talented energies, to supply his loss by the waning of the years. He has been so fortunate as to succeed in associating Dr. John Wright with him in this edition. He is a very zealous and accurate young naturalist. After some years of ardent devotedness to the Natural Sciences at this institution, he had the benefit of Professors Ives’ and Silliman’s instructions at Yale College. He has since been united with Prof. Hall in the descriptive catalogue of Troy Plants. In the summer of 1838 he collected and reported, the plants of Michigan, as official Botanist to the State Geological Commission.

John Wright and George Bull contributed much more to Eaton’s work than merely Michigan records. In a letter to John Torrey dated February 10, 1840 (New York Botanical Garden archives), Eaton notes that he had “Wright, and his Michigan assistant Bull examine every proof” and later in the letter that Wright had been very sick for a week, and he had not seen him, but “Geo. Bull, his assistant as Botanist in Michigan is at his father’s (Judge Bull of Troy) and at leisure. He corrects all proofs,” further noting that Bull “is a very faithful and accurate botanist.” Wright and Bull clearly made it possible for the aging Eaton to publish one last iteration of his well-known text. However, like Wright’s list, the Eaton and Wright Manual contained few details beyond the occurrence of the plants in Michigan. As with most specimen-based endeavors, the lasting legacy is not publications, lists, or floras that quickly become outdated, but the collections and associated label data. Collections, unlike almost all publications, increase in scientific value over time, a point that needs more emphasis in the biological sciences.

The First Survey Collections

McVaugh (1970) noted that “The authors of the pioneer floras of North America, writing in the early 19th Century, knew little of Michigan, and their works contain few references to the plants of that state.” This applies generally to the western Great Lakes region, the “N. W. Lakes” of Eaton and Wright (1840). However, by the end of 1840, due to the Schoolcraft Expeditions and the First Survey, that was no longer true. Eaton’s preface to Eaton and Wright (1840) notes: “The districts about our N. W. Lakes…have been in a great measure deficient in recorded localities of plants…the botanical surveys of Dr. Houghton, Dr. Wright, and his diligent assistant Mr. G. Bull have supplied these deficiencies.” The First Survey especially represented a great early pulse of plant collecting in Michigan, not equaled until decades later in the 1860s and 1870s when more intensive cataloging of the flora began (Voss 1978). The collection totals per halfdecade for the period 1801 to 1875 clearly show the magnitude of this contribution (Figure 26). The large numbers of First Survey collections are what makes it feasible to present an early view of the flora in 1840. Collecting in Michigan during this period other than by the First Survey botanists was sparse, localized, and not oriented towards any specific goal, but does provide some additional records for the flora.

Figure 26.

Collecting frequency for the years 1801 to 1875 by half-decade.

The First Survey and other early collections, while certainly not before the beginnings of conversion to European agricultural practices, wetland alteration, and timber harvesting, at least in southern Michigan, did predate the large-scale drainage of wetlands, alteration of streams and springs, and elimination of prairies. The flora these collections document thus represents an imperfect, but useful glimpse of the flora just as non-native plants began to enter our landscape, but before the vast alteration and degradation of the flora and vegetation that occurred later.

The Quality of First Survey Plant Specimens

Wright (1839) described his methodology as follows: “The herbaceous plants, when not too large, have been kept entire, including their roots, stems, leaves, and flowers; and when not too large, suitable portions of each have been taken to illustrate them; of the wood ones, small branches with their leaves, and when practicable, flowers and fruits, have been selected for the purpose.” These are good practices even at present and generally the First Survey specimens met his standards. McVaugh (1970) observed that “the plants were for the most part carefully collected and pressed; many of the specimens are of excellent quality, and many of them are still in an excellent state of preservation.” He noted that the major issue with the specimens is their inadequate documentation due to poor curation in the past: “The specimens now in the Michigan set have been treated in a variety of ways, and not always for their good.”

The First Survey Specimens and the University of Michigan Herbarium

While the path of the large set of First Survey specimens to the National Arboretum herbarium (NA) through Zina Pitcher’s widow is clear (Meyer and Elsasser 1973), how the collections now at MICH came there, and from what sources, remained a puzzle to McVaugh (1970) and is still somewhat mysterious. The founding of the University of Michigan Herbarium and collecting by the First Survey were linked. The enabling legislation for the Survey in 1837 provided that “specimens shall be deposited in the state library, and similar specimens shall be deposited in such literary and scientific institutions as the governor shall direct.” At first, however, the collections were stored in Houghton’s house. As noted by Asa Gray in August of 1838, Houghton’s home was “entirely occupied as a store-house for the stuff collected in the State Survey.” This is an interesting observation, as the 1838 party was still out in southwestern Michigan during August. The 1837 Survey party made fewer collections, especially of plants, so quite possibly the materials included 1838 material left by the Survey party after their spring stint at Port Huron and perhaps material sent back by mail or stagecoach from their summer collecting. Of course, Gray did not specify that all the materials were pressed plants. Animal and mineral specimens would have been bulkier than pressed herbarium specimens. In any event, one wonders what Houghton’s family thought of all this.

In 1838, Zina Pitcher chaired a “Select Committee” looking at funding to preserve and house at the University of Michigan the zoological specimens collected by the First Survey, though there was no mention of plants (Pitcher 1838). Also, Houghton, in his Report of the State Geologist dated February 4, 1839 (Houghton 1839), had a separate section headed “Collections for the State University,” in which he noted that “[t]he collections already made in the several departments of mineralogy, geology, zoology and botany, are in such condition that they may be readily transferred to the university, at Ann Arbor, whenever the proper arrangements shall have been made by the regents for that purpose. The board of regents have already furnished ample rooms, in this city, as a temporary place of deposite for the collections now being made.” Part of the problem here was that the collections certainly were meant to go to the University of Michigan, as clearly stated in the more detailed 1838 reauthorization of the Survey. The specimens were to be “distributed by the regents amongst the university and its branches.” However, the legislation also provided that “to entitle the university and its branches to any of the benefits of this act, of the aggregate amount herein appropriated, four thousand dollars shall be refunded to the state treasury from the university fund.” The regents declined to go along with this expense (Proceedings of the Board of Regents 1837–1864), and the material was caught in a temporary financial impasse. Houghton, assisted by Bela Hubbard (perhaps in writing labels), spent some time during the fall (of 1841) “arranging a portion of the choice collections of specimens” (Rintala 1954), but it is not clear to what specimens this refers. In February 1843, a count of the specimens was 15,000 (Rintala 1954). This presumably included duplicates. Mains (1956) provides more detail on the difficulties encountered in transferring the collections to the University. The formal transfer of the First Survey specimens to the University of Michigan finally occurred in 1846, after Houghton’s death, by act of the legislature (Doll 1881, Mains 1956). However, no inventory was noted, and how the current holdings of First Survey collections in MICH relate to these dealings is still uncertain. The trail grew cold with Houghton’s unexpected tragic death.

As noted by McVaugh (1970), the relabeling of many First Survey collections in the 1870s and 1880s further obscured the situation. McVaugh (1970) concluded that “it appears that the [existing First Survey] collections came to the University Herbarium from several sources” and this does seem clear, given their widely varying labels dating from different times. It seems possible that some of the original collection was somehow lost early on, and the existing holdings re-assembled from sets of duplicates possessed by various early collectors. In notes about the herbarium collections at the University of Michigan compiled by E. C. Allmendinger in about 1880 for the History of Washtenaw County (Doll 1881), she noted that besides “specimens of all the plants of the State, numbering about 1,175 species and 15,000 entries,” sizable collections had been donated by Houghton, Sager, George L. Ames, Adams Jewett, and others. The totals for Michigan presumably included the First Survey collections, as well as many others accumulated up to this time.

Outside of the University of Michigan Herbarium, by far the largest set of First Survey collections is that from Zina Pitcher’s herbarium at NA. Isaac Martindale exchanged a few duplicate specimens while he possessed Pitcher’s herbarium, a smattering of which ended up at US. Smaller sets are at NY from specimens sent to John Torrey and at GH from specimens given to Asa Gray. A modest number of duplicates were relatively recently distributed by MICH to MSC. A small set at GH (with a few duplicates at MO, NY, and elsewhere), some with contemporary labels by George H. Bull, are from the herbarium of George Thurber, who likely acquired them while he was Professor of Botany and Horticulture at the State Agricultural College of Michigan (now Michigan State University) from 1859 to 1863 (Rusby 1890). These collections often have the collector misstated as Houghton, or even as Thurber. McVaugh (1970) noted “a small set of grasses and sedges” at the S. M. Tracy Herbarium (TAES) of Texas A and M University that he had not seen. There are 12 of these, exchanged by Thurber and cited in Appendix 1. They almost totally duplicate MICH or NA holdings.

Nevertheless, very few specimens are represented by more than two or three duplicates, leaving still the mystery as to what happened to all the duplicates collected in 1838. An unknown remains what was lost in the 1913 fire at the University of Michigan Herbarium. Mains (1956) noted: “Owing to lack of space a part of the collection was stored in bundles in the attic. A disastrous fire in 1913 destroyed this material, and damage from water and smoke necessitated discarding part of the remainder.” However, as there was no inventory, it remains unclear what was lost.⁵² The set at NA is probably essentially as complete as when Zina Pitcher obtained it from Houghton. Losses of specimens from GH and NY are more difficult to assess but may have been more substantial since First Survey specimens are quite scarce in both herbaria.

John Wright’s 1839 List and Eaton and Wright’s 1840 Manual

Though Houghton reported extensively on his geological results, the only botanical report from the First Survey was John Wright’s preliminary list in his report for the year 1838 (Wright 1839). McVaugh (1970) wondered how Wright was able to produce his list in such short order with so few resources, especially as he found the list credible.

McVaugh (1970) implied that Wright’s list was based on collections made during the 1838 field season but, as State Botanist, Wright would surely have had access to the collections made in 1837, and the list was clearly cumulative, although it is also clear that species collected only by Houghton farther north in Michigan were not included. Quite a number of species on Wright’s 1839 list are not supported by 1838 specimens, about 270 out of the 849 species. Conversely, about 50 species collected in 1838 are not obviously included on the list. Some of these were clearly plants still unknown to Wright at the time, who viewed his list as preliminary. That still leaves some distinctive and easy to identify plants that were collected, but that are not on the list, such as Jeffersonia diphylla, Lithospermum latifolium, and Viburnum lentago. These omissions are apparently the result of slips from hurried preparation. Presuming that the list was cumulative and included 1837 collections, only about 155 species listed by Wright remain unsupported by collections. The 1837 specimens support entries on Wright’s list for many striking and distinctive items such as Actaea racemosa, Agalinis purpurea, Agrostemma githago, Baptisia tinctoria, Medeola virginiana, Physostegia virginiana, Solidago rigida, Saururus cernuus, and Verbascum thapsus, all collected only in 1837. Barely more than 30 species collected in 1837 were not on Wright’s list. However, it is true that the species reported by Wright for which no collections have been seen do imply some loss of specimens.

McVaugh (1970) noted that Wright apparently took few specimens with him to Troy, though what that means in this context is unclear. One of the most interesting Hillside Prairie species found by the First Survey was Besseya bullii, originally named Gymnandra bullii by Amos Eaton (Eaton and Wright 1840) for George H. Bull. This distinctive rare plant, discovered in Michigan by the 1838 Survey party, caused a minor stir in the botanical community. Duplicates appear to have been few. Wright noted in a letter to John Torrey of March 21, 1840 (New York Botanical Garden archives): “You wish another specimen of the Gymnandra, and I now send you all I have of it, which is a very poor specimen.” Unfortunately, Wright does not give the locality. Another plant collected in 1838 is the exceedingly rare prairie plant Baptisia leucophaea, mentioned in Eaton and Wright (1840) with the cryptic note “description not received.” In the same letter to Torrey, Wright wrote: “I sent you all of my specimens [of] Baptisia leucophaea and as I have no description of it, wish that you will write me one.” Perhaps the specimens Wright took to Troy were those whose identity he had not yet worked out to his satisfaction, to ensure he had material to write descriptions for Eaton’s Manual. For example, the Baptisia leucophaea Wright sent to Torrey has the tentative name “B. michiganensis“ on the label. In any event, no specimens taken by Wright to Troy are extant except for some that he sent to Torrey, including Wright’s Baptisia specimen (though Wright never received his description). No specimen has yet been found of the Besseya.

McVaugh (1970) noted: “For what reason I cannot say, a rather high percentage of the rare and unusual species reported by Wright are represented by specimens in the Michigan herbarium. There are no specimens, however, for many of the common woodland species of southern Michigan. Perhaps some past curator of the herbarium discarded duplicate sheets of the common species because the collection at that time contained better and more modern specimens of the same species.” However, the Survey parties for both years did not embark until late spring, the few roads of the time likely being difficult to navigate earlier. In 1837, they reached their first collecting stop on June 12, too late to obtain satisfactory collections for many common forest understory species. In 1838 the party was not in the field until May 20 in the Port Huron area, where, however, they did collect some common spring flora, e.g., Trillium spp., Viola spp., Sanguinaria canadensis, Thalictrum dioicum, Anemone quinquefolia, Cardamine concatenata, Mitella spp., and Uvularia sessilifolia. The sandy soils about Port Huron, however, likely possessed a somewhat impoverished selection of rich forest understory species that not even a brief visit inland to the richer portions of the Black River valley on June 11 could rectify. The 1838 party did not collect again until June 19, around Ann Arbor, too late for most spring forest understory plants. In both years, they would have mostly observed tattered remnants of the spring flora unsuitable for making good specimens. Nevertheless, they seemingly made only modest efforts around their homes to collect the early spring flora before the field parties went to the field, as only a few skimpily labeled early season collections are extant. Perhaps McVaugh (1970) was right to suspect that past curators turned up their noses at indifferent specimens of common plants from near their homes and discarded these. Due to the poor curatorial practices noted by McVaugh (1970), particularly discarding original labels, some specimens may also have become disassociated from their label data and were discarded over time as too poorly documented.

As noted by McVaugh (1970), the very first flora of North America in which Michigan had comprehensive representation was the eighth edition of Eaton’s Manual, published in 1840. Clearly, Wright added in the First Survey collections, noted as “Mch.” (sometimes “Mich.” for species names beginning with the letters “A” through “C” or occasionally even “Michigan”). Records from Dennis Cooley, Douglass Houghton, and Edwin James, were noted with a “D.” for “Detroit and N. W. Lakes.” These “D.” records present special problems. Among them, of course, are many from localities outside of present-day Michigan. Therefore, records denoted by a “D.” are excluded from Appendix 1, if no specimen has been discovered, as it is then impossible know if the record was from Michigan or not. The “D.” notation was also found in the sixth and seventh editions of Eaton’s Manual (Eaton 1833, 1836). All these records, however, are assumed once to have had specimens as supporting documentation.

Like Wright’s (1839) list, the eighth edition of Eaton and Wright’s Manual was prepared quickly, as noted in the introductory material (Eaton and Wright 1840), perhaps at least partially due to Wright’s being ill during some of this time (Eaton and Wright 1840). Apparent omissions of species and other slips are occasional. Nevertheless, the fact that Wright supplied all the First Survey collection records means that the eight edition of the Manual provides an additional, more comprehensive, check on First Survey collections than Wright’s (1839) list. Though McVaugh (1970) looked closely at the 1839 list, he did not similarly analyze the Eaton Manual. With the very likely correct assumption that everything reported in the Eaton and Wright (1840) Manual as “Mch.” (or one of its variants) was at one time supported by First Survey specimens, there is an opportunity to derive a quantitative view of what proportion of the First Survey collections has gone missing, either globally or from the MICH set specifically. The total number of First Survey species reported by Wright (1839) and Eaton and Wright (1840) and the percentages of each represented by extant herbarium specimens in MICH and in all herbaria are presented in Table 15.

The percentages given in Table 15 are subject to certain uncertainties. Besides the few names unable to be linked to a species as currently understood, some names were applied to more than one species and, in a few cases, the same species recognized today was apparently reported under two different names. Both Wright (1839) and Eaton and Wright (1840) also failed to report some species that were collected by the First Survey, presumably due to uncertain determinations or perhaps to simple slip-ups. Furthermore, Wright (1839) did not include collections made by Houghton or Houghton and Bull. In addition, a modest number of specimens doubtless remain to be discovered. Nevertheless, the percentages represented by collections at MICH and in total in Table 15 are quite similar, even with the larger number of species reported in Eaton and Wright (1840) than in Wright (1839). It is gratifying that, considering all herbaria, about 80% of the species reported are supported by specimens.

This, combined with the fact that all plant families with more than a few native species are represented in herbaria by at least some vouchers, and the fact that the proportions of species in larger families (20 or more species) represented by vouchers were generally roughly similar, indicates that losses of herbarium specimens at MICH and elsewhere likely accumulated slowly over time. The proportion of specimens surviving that represent “Mch” reports in Eaton and Wright (1840), about 80%, is higher than the 62% of even older Michigan specimens surviving from Houghton’s (1834) list (see below under The Flora List). Variations in the percentage of representation among families is likely due to other factors, such as far fewer species being recognized in some complex groups in the past. Herbarium specimen losses thus seem most likely due to culling, over time, of (i) damaged specimens, (ii) specimens for which the label data were very incomplete or missing, or (iii) poor specimens of common species. There are no large gaps in the collections that might suggest losses of all specimens of some plant families or other substantial sections of the flora due to catastrophic losses of large portions of the materials mentioned by Houghton in 1843 (Rintala 1954), such as the 1913 fire at the University of Michigan (Mains 1956). It remains possible that First Survey duplicates not yet distributed were among materials destroyed by this fire.