Montana’s Pioneer Botanists: Exploring the Mountains and Prairies

by Rachel Potter, Peter Lesica

Montana is a large state with diverse vegetation from Great Plains prairie and deciduous forest in the east, to northern coniferous forest and alpine tundra in the west. Discovering the botanical secrets of this spectacular landscape began with indigenous peoples and continued through the 20th Century with early explorers, geographers, and entrepreneurs followed by teachers, scientists and curious and dedicated lay persons. Montana's multitude of rugged mountains and wide open spaces means that botanical discoveries which started with the Lewis and Clark Expedition continue to this day. Montana's Pioneer Botanists brings together more than thirty biographies of these diverse people and traces the growth of botanical knowledge in this wild and beautiful state. The stories are illustrated with over 200 images including portraits, photos of Montana's landscapes and flowers, as well as botanical illustrations. From a review by Dr. Patricia Holmgren, Director Emerita, New York Botanical Garden Herbarium: Hear ye, hear ye! Librarians, botanists, herbarium curators, historians, book aficionados! You are going to love Montana's Pioneer Botanists, a gold mine of information about botanical exploration in Montana, beginning with indigenous people and ending with Klaus Lackschewitz (1911-1995). Editors Rachel Potter and Peter Lesica have produced a magnificent compendium of 31 historical essays written by 18 authors, many with a special connection to or knowledge of the botanist about whom they were writing. Photos of botanists and plants associated with them are skillfully interspersed within the essays.

183 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Thomas J Elpel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Montana’s Pioneer Botanists is the ultimate nerd book for botanists of Montana and beyond. The book is a beautiful tribute to early botanists who explored, identified, collected, and cataloged the flora of Montana from the Great Plains to the highest mountaintops.

Anyone who has botanized in Montana, the Rocky Mountains, or the Pacific Northwest has likely encountered species such as Lewisia rediviva or Clarkia pulchella, named after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, respectively, the first western-trained botanists to explore the region and document species for science. Many species were named after them and other botanists who followed in their footsteps, typically Latinizing the names with an “i” or “ii” after their names, such as Mimulus lewisii for Captain Lewis or Astragalus lyalli for David Lyall.

Montana Pioneer Botanists illuminates the individual life stories behind the names encountered so frequently in plant books, like Charles Geyer whose name appears in numerous species such as Allium geyeri and Physaria geyeri. Early botanists didn’t normally name plants after themselves, but provided dried collections to taxonomists who named some species in honor of their discoverers.

While the usefulness of biographies about botanists is debatable, the book pays due homage to those who came before us, creating something of a family tree of thirty amateur and professional botanists who made significant contributions to the study of the flora of Montana. Some focused the majority of their work within the state, while others primarily botanized elsewhere, yet made notable botanical surveys into Montana at some point in their careers.

These pioneering botanists collected and identified plants and wrote floras encompassing known species, followed by other botanists who filled in the gaps and refined texts to publish more comprehensive and generally better floras. For those of us who carry on in their footsteps, some of the tools have changed, yet the quest continues along similar goals. Rather than collect and preserve physical specimens, many contemporary botanists substitute cameras for plant presses, collecting and labeling digital specimens, some of which make their way into modern field guides and floras. Montana’s Pioneer Botanists gives us insight into those who blazed the trails we continue to explore today.