By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star on January 26, 2007
Lindheimer’s senna, Engelmann daisy, Drummond phlox, Ashe juniper, Wright lip fern. Lots of native plants of this area are named after men. Who are these guys whose names will live in posterity, forever connected to the common and scientific names of certain species of Texas plants?
Most are men who had a prominent role in the history of botany in Texas. For brief discussions of these early botanists see the concise history of Texas botany in “Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas” by Diggs, Lipscomb, and O’Kennon. “The Handbook of Texas Online” is a quick reference for a few further details on early plant collectors in Texas.
The first person to make extensive plant collections in the area that became Texas was Jean Louis Berlandier, who was trained as a botanist in Geneva. When Berlandier was in his early twenties, his patron, the foremost Swiss botanist Augustin de Candolle, sent him to make botanical collections in Mexico. He arrived in Vera Cruz in1926, and for the next three years he collected plant specimens from Mexico City to San Antonio, then in northern Mexico.
Berlandier also compiled notes on animal species and made ethnological studies on over forty North American tribes. In 1829 he settled in Matamoros, where he became a physician. During the Mexican War, he was in charge of hospitals in Matamoros. Berlandier continued to make collections of plants and animals in Texas and Mexico. He drowned in a river near Matamoros when he was in his mid-forties.
Berlandier is honored in the scientific names of several species of animals and plants. The genus Berlandiera (greeneyes) is named for this early botanist. The Hill Country species is Berlandiera texana (Texas greeneyes).
Thomas Drummond also studied plants in this area before there was a Republic of Texas.
Drummond was born in Scotland about 1790. He followed his father and older brother James into horticulture and botany. In 1825 he was made assistant naturalist on Sir John Franklin’s second expedition to Arctic America. Drummond was assigned to make botanical collections in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies (Mount Drummond and the Drummond Icefields are named for him). On returning to Scotland, he became the first Curator of the Belfast Botanical Garden.
Drummond made a second trip to America in 1831 to collect specimens from the United States. In time, he made his way from New York to New Orleans. Apparently, he was inspired to travel to Texas by reports of the botanical collection made by Berlandier. In 1833 he went by ship from New Orleans to the Texas coast.
Drummond survived floods, sickness, and other hardships to spend 22 months collecting plants from Galveston to the Edwards Plateau. He is reported to have collected about 750 species of plants and 150 species of birds. His specimens from Texas were the first to be widely distributed among museums and scientific institutions of the world. In other words, Drummond put Texas on the botanical map!
He intended to return to Scotland to bring his family back to Texas. En route, he collected in Florida and Cuba. He was sick with fever when he left New Orleans and died in Havana, Cuba, in 1835.
Many plant names commemorate Thomas Drummond, but probably the best known in this area is the Drummond phlox (Phlox drummondii).
Several others who collected botanical specimens in Texas (Lindheimer, Roemer, Wright, Buckley, and more) also are honored with native-plant namesakes. In future columns I’ll write about some of these other men. And what about women? Are there any plants named for female botanists? We’ll see.
