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The Essential Botanical Volume for Lewis and Clark Study, August 17, 2000
This review is from: The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Volume 12: Herbarium of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Hardcover)
Number twelve in a distinguished, and, multivolume effort by Dr. Gary Moulton, The University of Nebraska, The "Herbarium" volume of "The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition" is the most comprehensive, edited botanical reference of the known plant specimens of the Corps of Discovery, 1803-1806.
As an impressive culmination to the Journals, the herbarium collection finalizes the extensive botanical scholarship contained in the notes produced by Dr. Moulton in the previous eleven volumes, published periodically over the past twenty years. The product of extensive research into the known world repositories of the extent plant specimens, this volume contains only one known error in terms of inclusion of a plant specimen that cannot be attributed to the expedition's collection. This one specimen at the Charleston Museum has been discounted since publication.
Nevertheless, this volume contains relatively high-quality image reproductions of the known 238 specimens in the Lewis and Clark Herbarium, in addition to a clear introduction to the history of the Herbarium collection and the scholarship behind its most recent publication. 227 specimens are currently housed in the Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia, and the remaining 11 are housed in the Kew Gardens, London. Of this list, 177 are distinct, individual specimens.
In the future, it is more than likely, despite this exhaustive effort on the part of Moulton, that a few new specimens will emerge from the depths of the American Philosophical Society, The Academy of Natural Sciences, and Kew.
Until such a time, this volume is an absolute necessity for anyone seriously interested in understanding the natural history ramifications of the expedition, the study of Lewis and Clark, and, for that matter, America's landscape legacy. One wonders how many more specimens would have been added to this collection if Lewis' early collections for the lower-Missouri had not been lost to decay during the expedition itself.
"Volume 12, Herbarium of the Lewis and Clark Expedition," Gary E. Moulton, Editor, The University of Nebraska Press, completes a fantastic series and must be added to complete one's collection of the first eleven volumes of the truly great American literary epic.
The only wish of this author would be the publication of high-resolution, color digital images of the Herbarium on CD or DVD, as a compendium to this volume. Perhaps in this way, we could all experience more clearly the wonder of viewing this most valuable treasure.
Dr. Gary Moulton should be congratulated for a job very well-done.
Alex Philp The University of Montana
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