Gilt Drama. Ribes odoratum Wendl., Golden Currant, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Yes. Drama indeed. So Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), leader of the over-famous Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Louisiana Purchase, was also an avid plant collector. At Three Forks, Montana, he on July 29, 1805 picked Ribes odoratum - soon under the name of Ribes aureum -, and wondrously that specimen is still today preserved. The other specimens he collected were destroyed by a rising of the Missouri River, and he notes sadly on July 13, 1806: 'all my specimens of plants also lost'. This botany would have been even more tragic if it had been the cause of Lewis's murder or suicide at Grinder's Stand, Tennessee, in 1809.
A few years later in 1811, Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859) and John Bradbury (1768-1823), members of the so-called Astoria Expedition along the Missouri River, also collected our Odoratum. I'm too lazy to find out where Nuttall found it, but Bradbury - in whom I'm more interested - collected it on Little Cedar Island, Missouri. A bit of a drama queen - it would seem - he claimed that Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774-1820), in contrast to his middle name I guess, stole his plant (and others) and his description for his own as Ribes aureum in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1814). Bradbury thereafter refused ever again to write on botany!
Leaving drama and tragedy behind, -The Botanical Register in 1816 - with a sneer to the flowers of the genus as a whole - writes ecstatically: 'With us this pretty shrub has as yet no other value than that which arises from a colour and fragrance of blossom unlooked for in this genus; but in its native place it is highly prized for the excellence of the fruit, which is said to be larger than any of our more common garden sorts.'
Before I forget: 'Wendl.' is for Heinrich Ludolph Wendland (1791-1869), who officially described our Ribes in 1825. In his description he remarks rather sourly that he doesn't know whether Pursh is right in acclaiming Odoratum's fragrance, but that in 'matters of taste there can be no dispute'.
Gilt Drama. Ribes odoratum Wendl., Golden Currant, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Yes. Drama indeed. So Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), leader of the over-famous Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Louisiana Purchase, was also an avid plant collector. At Three Forks, Montana, he on July 29, 1805 picked Ribes odoratum - soon under the name of Ribes aureum -, and wondrously that specimen is still today preserved. The other specimens he collected were destroyed by a rising of the Missouri River, and he notes sadly on July 13, 1806: 'all my specimens of plants also lost'. This botany would have been even more tragic if it had been the cause of Lewis's murder or suicide at Grinder's Stand, Tennessee, in 1809.
A few years later in 1811, Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859) and John Bradbury (1768-1823), members of the so-called Astoria Expedition along the Missouri River, also collected our Odoratum. I'm too lazy to find out where Nuttall found it, but Bradbury - in whom I'm more interested - collected it on Little Cedar Island, Missouri. A bit of a drama queen - it would seem - he claimed that Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774-1820), in contrast to his middle name I guess, stole his plant (and others) and his description for his own as Ribes aureum in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1814). Bradbury thereafter refused ever again to write on botany!
Leaving drama and tragedy behind, -The Botanical Register in 1816 - with a sneer to the flowers of the genus as a whole - writes ecstatically: 'With us this pretty shrub has as yet no other value than that which arises from a colour and fragrance of blossom unlooked for in this genus; but in its native place it is highly prized for the excellence of the fruit, which is said to be larger than any of our more common garden sorts.'
Before I forget: 'Wendl.' is for Heinrich Ludolph Wendland (1791-1869), who officially described our Ribes in 1825. In his description he remarks rather sourly that he doesn't know whether Pursh is right in acclaiming Odoratum's fragrance, but that in 'matters of taste there can be no dispute'.