Participant on the U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 (the Wilkes Expedition). William Rich was brought up and influenced in his interest in plants by his older brother Obadiah Rich, a shipping agent and later U.S. consul in Spain. William Rich was working as a clerk when he was appointed to the Exploring Expedition as an assistant to Asa Gray, on the basis of his recent work in helping to compile a checklist of plants around Washington D.C. He became the trip's chief botanist in lieu of the better-qualified Gray after Gray pulled out in favour an academic appointment (the first professorship in botany in the U.S.). William Brackenridge, appointed as horticulturist to the expedition, in fact did most of the collecting and botany on the voyage led by Charles Wilkes, William Rich not being particularly adept.
The expedition's ships led a trail from Virginia around the coast of South America, past Rio de Janeiro, Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Peru to the South Pacific and Samoan Islands before visiting New South Wales in 1839 and then exploring the Antarctic coast in early 1840. Pushing up towards Fiji and Hawaii, it then traversed the West Coast of the United States in 1841, where an overland party including Rich explored from Oregon along the Siskyou Trail to upper California. The expedition then continued to the Philippines, Borneo and Polynesia, rounding the South African Cape on its way back to New York, which it reached in June 1842.
Plant collections made by Rich, Brackenridge and another of the expedition naturalists, Charles Pickering, number about 50,000. The main collections were deposited at the Smithsonian Institution with duplicates going to the Gray Herbarium and other institutions. Following the expedition Rich did not produce a satisfactory report on the botanical findings, and in 1846 was appointed major and paymaster to a troop of volunteers involved in the Mexican-American war. Rich thus engaged in military business, Asa Gray instead made his contribution to the enterprise by writing up a portion of the botanical findings (Brackenridge, Pickering and John Torrey produced the rest). Few copies of the Wilkes reports were actually published and are thus some of the rarest 19th century scientific publications.
Rich continued in his military capacity until late 1849, bringing back a few dried plant specimens from California. J.H. Barnhart records that he took the opportunity to collect specimens while involved in the U.S. and Mexican Boundary Survey (1848) and then in 1853 on the Pacific Railroad Surveys, but this is unconfirmed. He was appointed Secretary of the U.S. Legation in Mexico 1952, but this post lasted under two years. Details of his later life are obscure.
Rich's failure to make his mark in academic botany was not the result of a lack of interest; he had co-founded the Botanic Club of Washington in 1825 and was a keen horticulturist, organising the Columbian Horticultural Society's annual exhibition in Washington. However it seems Rich had not the aptitude or zeal to devote himself wholeheartedly to fieldwork or science. Asa Gray, who agreed for Rich to take his place on the Wilkes Expedition, named the genus Richella A.Gray after him, as well as the species Cyrtandra richii A.Gray, Senecio richii A.Gray and Lycium richii A.Gray. Rich should not be confused with William Penn Rich (1849-1930), a grocer and amateur botanist in Boston.
Sources:
R.E. Hyde, 1986, "William Rich of the Great U.S. Exploring Expedition and how his shortcomings helped botany become a calling", Huntia, 6(2): 165-196
F.A. Stafleu, 1972, "Review: Historiae Naturalis Classica: Wilkes, de Candolle, Weddell", Taxon, 21(1): 167-171.
