Sciences / Plants / Rafinesque’s Six Firs

Rafinesque’s Six Firs

Full text with commentary

By James L. Reveal

The full text of Rafinesque’s 1832 paper is given below with comments. Also added are Lewis’ descriptive comments as given in the second volume of the 1814 Nicholas Biddle edition of a History of the expedition under the command of captains Lewis and Clark and what was originally written in his journal as transcribed by Moulton (1990). Rafinesque did not see specimens and knew about the plants only from the 1814 publication.

SIX NEW FIRS OF OREGON.

Lewis and Clarke [sic] discovered and noticed without names, many years ago, several fine Fir trees of the Oregon or Columbia country. These I named and characterized in 1817 in my Florula Oregonensis,[1]This work was not published and therefore has no nomenclatural standing. Had Rafinesque published, his names would have priority over those proposed subsequently by all other authors. and since sent them to Prof. Decandolle [sic].[2]Rafinesque routinely sent his new names off to Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) who nearly always ignored them. Candolle, a Swiss botanist at Geneva, was actively publishing what he hoped to … Continue reading I now given here my names and specific characters of those 6 new sp. of the Genus Abies of Jussieu, &c.[3]By international agreement, modern scientific names of vascular plants begins with the publication of Species plantarum by Carl Linnæus (1707–1778) in 1753. He defined the genus Pinus broadly so … Continue reading

1. Abies trigona R. Gigantic Fir (First Fir L. C.) bark and branches scaly, leaves densely scattered, petiolate trigone acuminate and stiff-stated to be the largest tree of North America, some reaching 300 feet high, 200 without branches, and 42 feet around. Petiols trigone also, leaves ¾ of an inch long, 110 wide.

2. Abies heterophylla R. Odd leaved Fir (Second Fir L. C.) bark rimose, leaves distichal petiolate very unequal, sulcate above, glaucous beneath, cones terminal ovate minute flexible, reaching 180 feet high and 6 feet diameter. Leaves from ¼ to one inch long, but all 120 wide. Is it a variety of the Spruce Fir?

3. Abies aromatica R. Aromatic Fir (Third Fir L. C.) branches bullate balsamiferous, leaves densely scattered, forming 3 rows, sessile, lanceolate obtuse, flexible, sulcate and shining above, gibbous beneath. Reaching 100 feet high, blisters on the branches filled with a fine aromatic balsam. Leaves very small ⅛ of an inch long, 116 wide.

4. Abies microphylla R. Small leaved Fir (Fourth Fir L. C.) bark rimose, branches not bullate, leaves denselly scattered, forming 3 rows, sessile, sublanceolate acute. –Reaching 150 feet high. Like the last, but yielding no balsam, and with leaves still more minute, not lucid above, only 112 of an inch long, and 124 wide. Wood white and tough.

5. Abies mucronata R. (Fifth Fir L. C.) bark scaly, branches virgate, leaves scattered very narrow, rigid, and oblique, sulcate above, pale beneath. Cones ovate acute, scales rounded nervose mucronate. –Rises 150 feet, leaves sub-balsamic, one inch long, 120 wide, cones very large two and a half inches long. Var. palustris. Grows in swamps, only 30 feet high and with spreading branches.

6. Abies falcata R. (Seventh Fir L. C.) bark scaly, leaves tristichal or in 3 rows, in 2 rows upright, in lower row declinate falcate, all linear lanceolate, with trigone petiols. Cones fusiform obtuse at both ends. Only on the sea shore of Oregon, rising only 35 feet, leaves ¾ inch long, 1/5 wide.

 

References

Coues, E. (ed.) 1893. History of the expedition under the command of Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri River, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, performed during the years 1804-5-6, by order of the government of the United States. 4 vols. F. P. Harper, New York.

Douglas, D. 1914. Journal kept by David Douglas during his travels in North America, 1823–1827. Royal Horticultural Society, London.

Lewis, M. & W. Clark. 1814. History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, performed during the years 1804–5–6. By order of the government of the United States. Prepared for the press by Paul Allen, Esquire. [Edited by Nicholas Biddle.] 2 vols. Bradford and Inskeep, Philadelphia.

Little, E. L., Jr. 1971. Atlas of United States trees. Volume 1. Conifers and important hardwoods. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.

Moulton, G. E. (ed.). 1990. The journals of the Lewis & Clark expedition. The herbarium of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Volume 6. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Rafinesque, C. S. 1832. “Six new firs of Oregon.” Atlantic Journal 1: 119–120.

Reveal, J.L. 1991. Two previously unnoticed sources of generic names published by John Hill in 1753 and 1754-1755. Bulletin du Muséum National d’Histoire Nataturelle. Section B, Adansonia: Botanique Phytochimie 13: 197–239.

Thwaites, R. G. (ed.) 1904-1905. Original journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition 1804–1806. 8 vols. Dodd, Mead & Co, New York.

 

Notes

Notes
1 This work was not published and therefore has no nomenclatural standing. Had Rafinesque published, his names would have priority over those proposed subsequently by all other authors.
2 Rafinesque routinely sent his new names off to Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) who nearly always ignored them. Candolle, a Swiss botanist at Geneva, was actively publishing what he hoped to be a complete flora of the vascular plants of the world–the ferns, fern-allies, gymnosperms and angiosperms. The work, with the title of Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis, was destined to comprise seventeen volumes (1824–1873), with Candolle himself editing the first seven, and his son Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus de Candolle (1806-1893) editing the last ten. The task was never completed as the discoveries of new families, genera and species were far more numerous than the elder Candolle ever anticipated. Even today there is no single work that accounts for the world’s flora.
3 By international agreement, modern scientific names of vascular plants begins with the publication of Species plantarum by Carl Linnæus (1707–1778) in 1753. He defined the genus Pinus broadly so as to include several other genera that are today regarded as distinct from Pinus. A few months after Linnæus published (1 May 1753), the eccentric British genius John Hill (1716-1775) published the genus Abies. Despised by his contemporaries, and even today ill-regarded by many in Britain, Hill’s 18 October 1753 publication was ignored until rediscovered in 1991. Philip Miller (1691–1771), England’s national horticultural hero, subsequently published the same name for the fir in late January of 1754. As such, Hill should have been given credit for Abies according to the rules of nomenclature, but in 1992 it was decided that Hill’s publication should be rejected and his names disregarded thereby allowing Miller’s name to remain associated with this and numerous other genera. Today, Abies Mill. (Gard. Dict. Abr.: unpaged. 1754) is the official scientific name for the fir. The French botanist, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836), summarized the vascular plant families of the world in 1789, and attempted to account for all of the genera. This was still a standard reference for Rafinesque and others in his day.

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