Day-by-Day / July 13, 1804

July 13, 1804

Favorable winds

After a stormy evening, favorable winds push the boats over twenty miles up the Missouri River. They encamp west of Corning, Missouri. Lewis collects a specimen of white sage, but otherwise, the day appears otherwise uneventful.

An Uneventful Day

by Yellowstone Public Radio[1]Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © … Continue reading

White Sage

Artemisia ludoviciana

Tall, golden grasses in a prairie

23 June 2010 by Matt Levin. Permission via Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Beautiful Plain

Butifull & extensive plain, Cover’d with Grass resembling Timothy except the Seed which resembles Flax Seed, this plain also abounds in Grapes of defferent Kinds Some nearly ripe.
—William Clark

Lost Specimen No. 30

No. 30. was taken at the bald praries and is common to both low and high praries it usually grows in a single stem and appears to be an annual groath the leaves are white and like the stem appear to be covered with a white down— this is common to all the praries above the Kancez river; from it’s resemblence in taste smell &c to the common Sage I have called it the wild Sage.—
—Meriwether Lewis

Moulton identifies this lost specimen, received by John Vaughn in 1805 (see The Donation Book), as Artemisia ludoviciana, White Sage.[2]The date comes from Vaughn’s Donation Book. Two specimens that Lewis collected on other dates survive. Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:458–59, 464, … Continue reading

Related: Lewis’s Plant Collection | Lewis as Botanist | Plants of the Expedition

 

Notes

Notes
↑1 Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © 2003 by Yellowstone Public Radio.
↑2 The date comes from Vaughn’s Donation Book. Two specimens that Lewis collected on other dates survive. Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:458–59, 464, 467.

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Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.

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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).