Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774-1820)

Lance-leaf stonecrop (Sedum lanceolatum Pursh)
"On the naked rocks on the Kooskooskie. Jun: 5th. 1806."
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Getting to America

The short life of Frederick Pursh (also known as Friedrick Pursch) is a tale of emotional and professions highs and lows, fortune and misfortune, and triumphs and tragedies. He survives in botanical history by virtue of a single book, his Flora americae septentrionalis. He lies dead in an unmarked grave somewhere in Montreal, Canada, a drunk and destitue.

Pursh was born at Grossenhain in Saxony of unknown circumstances. Apparently he received little in the way of a formal education and probably in his late teens took employment at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Dresden. There he inherited a manuscript on the plants of the area that he prepared for publication. The work was published in parts by W. G. Becker in Der Plauische Grund bei Dresden, mit Hinsicht auf Naurgeschichte und schöne Gartenkunst in 1799. The title of Pursh's contribution "Verzeichniss der im Plauischen Grunde und den zunächst angrenzenden Gegenden wildwashsenden Pflanzen" and here he rendered his name "Friedrich Traugott Pursch."

Flushed with the success of his contribution, Pursh left Germany for the new United States. The reason for his departure is unknown, but his work in Dresden may have stirred a desire to see other parts of the world, and especially a part that offered a wealth of new and exciting plants for the garden.

Slaving in the Garden

Lewis' mock-orange (Philadelphus lewisii Pursh)
"Kooskoosky," 6 May 1806 & "Clarks R.," 4 Jul 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Pursh reached the American shore in 1799 and quickly found employment, apparently at a newly established botanical garden near Baltimore where he had the title of manager. Supposedly this was at "Canton" - an estate house owned by Colonel John O'Donnell - but his stay was probably not much over a year. It is clear that by 1801, Pursh was in Philadelphia and at "Springhill" in the employment of Samuel Beck as a gardener. Today, Springhill is part of Fairmount Park. In September of 1801, Pursh wrote to Benjamin Smith Barton ⁽¹⁾ that he was working as a "slave" for Beck, and looking for another opportunity. When, and if, Pursh was associated with Henry Pratt's garden at "Lemon Hill" (now also part of Fairmount Park) is uncertain.

By 1803, Pursh was at "Woodlands" the grand estate of William Hamilton where he succeeded the noted gardener John Lyon (for whom the shrub genus Lyonia [lie-ON-ee-ah] was named). It was at this time that Pursh came to know such botanists such as Philadelphia's William Bartram, ⁽²⁾ the son of the "King's botanist" John Bartram, and the Reverend Gotthilf Henry Ernest Muhlenberg ⁽³⁾ of Lancaster. For years Muhlenberg had been working on the local flora, sending specimens and descriptions of new species to Europe for publication.

For Pursh, these men provide him with untold numbers of opportunities to read in their libraries, to consult their gardens and herbaria, and to talk of the American flora. However, it would be Benjamin Smith Barton who would provide Pursh with his escape from the toils of working in the garden.

Pursh's silky lupine (Lupinus sericeus Pursh)
Collected near Kamiah, Idaho Co., Idaho, on 5 Jun 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Barton was a romantic with grand notions of self importance and accomplishments. In 1805, Pursh left Woodlands and became Barton's part-time curator and collector. Barton's goal was to build a huge herbarium of American plants and then produce a new flora of North America. That such a book had been published in 1803 by the French botanist, André Michaux - his two-volume work Flora boreali-Americana - seemed to be only a minor irritant. The following year, Pursh was in Virginia collecting plants, being away from Philadelphia from mid April until November.

Lance-leaf springbeauty (Claytonia lanceolata Pursh)
Collected along the Lolo Trail, Idaho Co., Idaho, 25-27 Jun 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

In August of 1805, Thomas Jefferson received the first 60 plants Meriwether Lewis collected along the Missouri River in 1804. They had been assembled at Fort Mandan, the 1804-1805 site in what is now North Dakota where the expedition over-wintered, and with a detailed catalogue, seeds and some live specimens, the whole had been sent back to St. Louis in the spring of 1805. They eventually reached Jefferson in August. By mid November, Jefferson had the dried specimens transmitted to Barton for his examination.

No doubt Pursh saw the collection when it arrived.

The relationship between Jefferson and Barton was a long-established one. Both men were members of the American Philosophical Society, and both had long wished someone would explore the western interior of North America for its natural wonders. Barton's overly ambitious plans for a flora of North America would have appealed to Jefferson. Certainly, Barton had some skill and knowledge in botany as his botanical publications had demonstrated. His set of essays on the materia medica of the United States first published in 1798, and his brief report on the natural history of Pennsylvania (1799) attested to his general knowledge in the sciences. However, it was his Elements of botany: or outlines of the natural history of vegetables - the first American botany textbook - that firmly established Barton's reputation. Thus, it was to Barton that Jefferson sent his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, for instructions in botany in May and June of 1803.

Jefferson, and also Lewis, presumed Barton would play an active role in the preparation of a planned natural history volume that was to be part of Lewis' report on the expedition. This was not to be. Barton did essentially nothing with the first set of plants although Lewis had provided him with abundant notes and material. With the return of the expedition in 1806, Jefferson urged Lewis to begin immediately to prepare his journal for publication, and to arrange with Barton to start, equally promptly, on the natural history. Apparently it was the noted Philadelphia gardener and seed merchant, Bernard M'Mahon ⁽⁴⁾ who, on 5 April 1807, recommended that Lewis contact Pursh to examine the expedition's plants.

Why Barton was unable to do the task has been variously given as poor health or simple unwillingness. The latter seems more likely. As was so often the case with Barton, when called upon to actually produce, he rarely was able to do so. Clearly, M'Mahon understood this, and thus the recommendation of Pursh.

Scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata (Pursh) V. E. Grant)
Collected along the Lolo Trail, Idaho Co., Idaho, 26 Jun 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Lewis and Pursh met in Philadelphia by mid April of 1807 and Pursh was employed to prepare a catalogue of the expedition's plants. Receiving $60 from Lewis to begin the work, apparently Pursh first did a series of drawings with Lewis reviewing the results. Clearly the two men talked about the overall aspect of some of the species, but Lewis' time was limited and Pursh was scheduled to leave at the end of April on his second collecting trip under Barton's patronage. Only limited progress on the plants was made at that time.

During the winter of 1807-1808, Pursh lived at the home of Bernard M'Mahon in Philadelphia. Here he worked on the drawings and descriptions of Lewis' western plants. By the end of May of 1808, Pursh had completed the initial work and was anxious to see his report - or at least the new species - published. Pursh was also anxious to be paid for his labors.

The relationship between Pursh and Barton was beginning to strain. In January of 1809, M'Mahon wrote to Jefferson reporting Pursh's displeasure at the delay in publication. To what extent Barton felt he (and Lewis) had hired Pursh to do a job, and it would be Barton who would published the new species, was probably also a factor. Soon thereafter, M'Mahon recommends Pursh to Dr. David Hosack ⁽⁵⁾ of New York who had just started the Elgin Botanic Garden and was in need of a gardener. By April of that year, Pursh left Philadelphia and was heading for New York.

With him, Pursh took a significant portion of the Lewis and Clark plant collection, most of his drawings, and apparently all of his notes.

How it came that Pursh took part of the collection with him to New York, and after a falling out with Hosack, late in 1811, Pursh took the specimens with him to London, has never been fully resolved. The events and circumstances are still being researched, and perhaps new evidence will come to light while the nation celebrates the Lewis and Clark bicentennial.

Great purple monkey-flower (Mimulus lewisii Pursh)
Found at "the head springs of the Missouri," 12 Aug 1805
Photo © by James L. Reveal

The death of Lewis on 18 Oct 1809 was soon made known to Pursh. There is indirect evidence that by this date, Pursh had completed his study of whole of the Lewis and Clark plant collection. In January of 1810, Clark was looking for the plants and drawings in Philadelphia. He recovered the portion then in the possession of Bernard M'Mahon; these eventually were returned to the American Philosophical Society. He probably paid Pursh for the finished drawings, but it is not certain he ever received the plates. Some of Pursh's ink sketches at now at the American Philosophical Society, but none of them is what one might considered a finished plate.

It is unclear what Clark did immediately with the plants he received from M'Mahon. It is possible they went back to Barton in the hopes he would still prepare a report on them for the expedition's report. It is also possible Clark returned them to the Philosophical Society. At any rate, at some point in time, the first 30 specimens sent to Jefferson by Lewis in 1805 disappeared. None has been found to date although a label, written by Lewis, for plant number 26, came onto the market as a Lewis autograph in the 1970s. Its original owner is not known and the fate of the specimens a continuing mystery.

In late 1810, apparently in poor health, Pursh sailed for the West Indies to collect plants for the Elgin Botanic Garden. He returned nearly a year later but was probably already planning his departure for England. He arrived in London, possibly in November of 1811, and immediately fell into a period of remarkable good fortune.

Elegant Mariposa-lily (Calochortus elegans Pursh)
Collected near Kamiah, Idaho Co., Idaho, on 17 May 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Pursh arrived with a large collection of plants already in hand. In addition to the small number of Lewis and Clark plants, he had retained significant portions of the plants he had gathered for both Barton and Hosack. He needed some place where he could have access to a large botanical library and collection as well as patronage. All of this he found in the home of Aylmer Bourke Lambert.

Pinkfairies (Clarkia pulchella Pursh)
Found "on the steep sides of the fertile hills"
northeast of Kamiah, Idaho Co., Idaho, on 1 Jun 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Pursh began to work immediately. In late January of 1812, he wrote the President of the Linnean Society, James Edward Smith,⁽⁶⁾ asking if he were interested in a manuscript for the Society's Transactions on the new species from the Lewis and Clark expedition. It was here that Pursh hoped to describe Lewisia [lu-WIS-ee-ah], Clarkia [clar-KEY-ah] and Calochortus [kal-OH-core-tus]. By spring, with the encouragement of Lambert, and now with access to the libraries and collections of both Sir Joseph Banks and James Smith, Pursh was set to work on a new flora of North America.

Oregon bitter-root (Lewisia rediviva Pursh)
Collected near Travelers' Rest, Missoula Co., Montana, on 2 Jul 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

It is said that Pursh had "tartaresque features and was correspondingly rough-hewn in behavior." He was also reportedly an alcoholic. There is a tale, probably apocryphal, that to get the flora finished, Lambert locked Pursh in his attic room, providing him only with books, specimens, paper, ink, food and beer. A contemporary of Pursh's described him in London as "drunk morning, noon and night," and even Barton in Philadelphia noted that Pursh favored the "muddy ectasies of beer." Whatever the truth, Pursh wrote away with considerable diligence. It is also obvious that Pursh was not always confined to his room. In addition to seeing the specimens owned by Lambert, Banks and Smith, he visited the University of Oxford where he consulted many early American collections such as that gathered by Mark Catesby in the 1720s.

In the spring of 1812, Pursh met Thomas Nuttall, a young man who had resided in Philadelphia from 1808 until his return to England in 1811. Like Pursh, Nuttall was hired by Benjamin Smith Barton to collect for him, basically taking Pursh's position when Pursh went to New York. Nuttall spent much of 1810 collecting in the "Old Northwest" around the Great Lakes, but in 1811, he managed to ascend the Missouri to Lewis and Clark's winter site of Fort Mandan, collecting dried specimens and seeds. Obviously, Nuttall recollected many of the new species Lewis and Clark had found there in 1804 and in 1806.

There now was a race by the two men to get their new genera into print.

Great blanket-flower (Gaillardia aristata Pursh)⁽⁷⁾
Collected "on dry hills" along Beaver Creek near Lewis and
Clark Pass, Lewis and Clark Co., Montana, 7 Jul 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Pursh abandoned his idea of publishing in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, and turned instead to the Botanical Magazine, a monthly publication designed to promote species of potential horticultural importance. In August he published Bartonia decapetala [bar-TONE-ee-ah and deck-AH-petal-ah - having ten petals], the gumbo-lily or what is today known as Mentzelia decapetala [meant-ZEE-lee-ah]. However, in this battle of publications, Nuttall was destined to win.⁽⁸⁾

At the same time Nuttall was meeting with Pursh in London in the spring of 1812, he was also visiting the nursery operated by John and James Fraser, the sons of John Fraser. Nuttall arranged to have his seeds raised at the Frasers' nursery located at Sloane Square in Chelsa. The effort was highly successful, and in the early fall of 1813, Nuttall published, through the nursery, A catalogue of new and interesting plants collected in Upper Louisiana.⁽⁹⁾ In this fashion, Nuttall validly published several of the new species he found before Pursh could describe the same plant based on the collections made by Lewis and Clark and another, now nearly forgotten botanist and Pursh's second questionable acquisition of a collection of plants.

When Nuttall went up the Missouri River in 1811, he traveled with the American fur trader William Price Hunt who was bound for the Columbia River on behalf of John Jacob Astor and the American Fur Company. He was also accompanied by another botanist, the English collector John Bradbury.⁽¹⁰⁾

While both Nuttall and Bradbury generally followed the Missouri, Bradbury traveled overland from the Great Bend to the old Fort Mandan site, gathering many prairie species not found by Nuttall who remained along the river. When the "Overland Astorians" finally headed westward, Bradbury returned to St. Louis, and Nuttall followed in the fall. Although the two botanists talked to one another along the river and in St. Louis, they pretty much travel separately so that Nuttall arrived in New Orleans before Bradbury. There he was able to book passage for England and departed. Bradbury, on the other hand, tarried and in so doing became caught up in the War of 1812 and remained in the United States. His plant collection, however, was shipped to England.

There, in a curious series of events, duplicates of Bradbury's collection came into the possession of Lambert and thus they were seen by Pursh. Pursh then added a supplement to his Flora wherein he described most of the 40 new species found by Bradbury. Deeply offended and with his fame as a collector and discover of new plants stolen, Bradbury did little in botany after that. Nuttall, however, went on to a distinguished career, making botanical forays onto the Red River of Texas and across the continent on the Oregon Trail in the 1830s.

Yellow avalanche-flower (Erythronium grandiflorum Pursh)
Collected along the Lolo Trail, Idaho Co., Idaho, on 15 Jun 1806;
on 16 Jun 1806 Lewis wrote "the dog-tooth violet is just in blume."
Photo © by James L. Reveal

The printing of Pursh's Flora was completed the second week of December in 1813, and on 21 December, Pursh presented copies to various of his supporters as well as submitting a copy to the Linnean Society at their monthly meeting. The formal publication announced by the printer was 10 January 1814, but by then several copies were already effectively distributed. For botanists, therefore, Flora americae septentrionalis was published in late December of 1813.

The two-volume work was a modest success. A few copies were sold with colored plates, but few buyers could afford the extra cost. In 1816 a second edition was published but this was essentially a reprint with only minor corrections. It reception was not always kind, as several were aware of the new species others intended to publish that Pursh proposed first. The first published review did not appear until 1817. Rafinesque was particularly scathing in his comment published in 1819. Twenty-five years later, Bradbury was still bitter over his experience with Pursh.

Prairie flax (Linum lewisii Pursh)
Found in the "Valleys of the Rocky mountains" on 9 Jul 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

For Pursh, the decline came rapidly. He published Hortus orloviensis [ore-LOUVIN-en-ses] 1815 to no particular notice, this being a catalogue of the plants found on an island near St. Petersburg, Russia. At the same time, Pursh edited the eighth edition of James Donn's Hortus cantabrigensis [HOAR-tus and cant-A-bridge-en-ses] without any notice of his and Nuttall's new American plants, and while a commercial success, Pursh apparently received little for his efforts. A ninth edition was published within three years.

In late 1814 Pursh received two interesting proposals. One was from Lord Selkirk for Pursh to serve as botanist to the Red River settlement in Canada. The other was an invitation to establish a botanical garden at Yale University. The latter, to his probably determent, Pursh declined. In February of 1816, Pursh left England for Canada. There, in early June, he formally agreed to go to the Red River settlement in what is now Manitoba, Canada. Within two weeks, the expedition leader, Robert Semple, was murdered and the project collapsed.

Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata (Pursh) DC.)
Collected on "the prarie of the knobs," Nevada Valley,
Powell Co., Montana, 6 Jul 1806
Photo © by James L. Reveal

Now in Canada with little in the way of a livelihood, Pursh did some minor collecting, but expressed hopes of doing a flora of Canada. By 1818, with some minor support, he collected in the Gulf of St. Lawrence only to have his entire collection burn in a house fire in Montreal the following year. The year 1818 also marked the publication of Nuttall's Genera of North American plants which forever limited the sale of Pursh's Flora. Drinking still and in poor health, Pursh died destitute in Montreal on 11 July 1820.

One can not leave Pursh without commenting on his brief success. While his Flora had many flaws, they were no more serious than those found in any other work treating a large portion of the world's flora. He has been criticized for his means of acquiring new and interesting plants and for ignoring the contributions of others, yet he was remarkably thorough for his time. He modified the Linnaean system of arranging plants into groups, making his groupings of plants much more natural than anything published to that time. He was careful to indicate whose specimens he saw and where he saw them, and where the plants grew in the wild. He annotated specimens so that today it is possible to find his comments on the herbarium sheets he examined in London and Oxford.

Pursh was a good collector, taking full and complete specimens so that one can readily identify his material today. While socially he was probably a misfit in both Philadelphia and London, he was nonetheless a gifted observer and a careful judge of what a species should be. He did what he had to do with the Lewis and Clark collection. We now know that he did not "steal" the specimens for Muhlenberg knew he had them in his possession. Also, it must be said that the Lewis and Clark collection was not well cared for by the American Philosophical Society, whereas the specimens that Pursh retained and gave to Lambert were properly curated.

It is perhaps fitting that the western shrub that bears Pursh's name, Purshia [per-SHE-ah], should be called bitterbrush. It is a remarkably hardy shrub wherever it occurs, and ranges widely from the deserts to the higher mountain ridges. Seemingly an awkward and often misplaced plant in the field, it is nonetheless a major food plant for grazing animals, especially deer and antelope. It may be bitter for humans to taste, but it serves its function much as Pursh served his - with determination.

Ewan, J. 1952. Frederick Pursh, 1774-1820, and his botanical associates. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96: 599-628.

Ewan, J. 1979. "Introduction to the facsimile reprint of Frederick Pursh' Flora americae septentrionalis (1814)," p. 7-117. In: F.T. Pursh, Flora americae septentrionalis. Facsimile reprint. J. Cramer, Vaduz.

Graustein, J. E. 1967. Thomas Nuttall, naturalist. Explorations in America, 1808-1841. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Isley, D. 1994. One hundred and one botanists. Iowa State University Press, Ames.

McKelvey, S. D. 1955. Botanical explorations of the trans-Mississippi west, 1790-1850. Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

Moulton, G. E. (ed.). 1999. The journals of the Lewis & Clark expedition. The herbarium of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Volume 12. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Nuttall, T. 1818. The genera of North American plants. 2 vols. D. Heart, Philadelphia.

Pursh, F. T. 1813. Flora americae septentrionalis. 2 vols. White, Cochrane, and Co., London.

Reveal, J. L. 1992. Gentle conquest. The botanical discovery of North America with illustrations from the Library of Congress. Starwood Publishing, Washington, D.C.

Reveal, J. L., G. E. Moulton & A. E. Schuyler. 1999. The Lewis and Clark collection of vascular plants: Names, types and comments. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 149: 1-64.

Reveal, J. L. & J. S. Pringle. 1993. "Taxonomic botany and floristics," pp. 157-192. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee (ed.), Flora of North America north of Mexico. Volume 1. Oxford University Press, New York. - see /usda/fnach7.html for an online version.

Rickett, H. W. 1950. John Bradbury's explorations in Missouri Territory. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 94: 59-89.

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