German botanist in Philadelphia responsible for the publication of an early American flora. Frederick Pursh (originally Friedrich) was born in Grossenhain, Saxony where he received his primary education before going on to study botany and horticulture in Dresden. Here he was an adept student and was soon employed to work at the Royal Botanical Garden of Dresden, where he remained until 1799 when he moved to the United States. Here Pursh met many of the great botanists of the time, including Humphrey Marshall and William Bartram and in 1802 began to work managing William Hamilton's gardens, receiving and collecting plants from all over North America.
In 1805 he left this position to travel south and explore the western montane regions of the Carolinas and Georgia. His travels were funded in the most part by his patron Benjamin Barton Smith who was also a keen collector. The following year he travelled north to the mountains of Pennsylvania and Vermont, all the way to Oswego and Onondaga on the Great Lakes.
In 1807 Pursh became one of the first directors of the New York Botanical Garden but was soon on the move again, this time to the West Indies which he visited in 1810 in order to improve his ailing health. On returning he studied and described the plants collected on the Lewis and Clark expedition to the far west and added this information to his growing manuscript of a flora of the country. In 1811 he set off for England to consult material for this work, and was able to publish Flora Americae septentrionalis in 1814. Building upon previous floras, particularly that of Gotthilf Mühlenberg, it contained the descriptions of 470 genera and 3,076 species. In a supplement he was also able to add many species which had been collected by Bradbury on the upper Missouri.
On returning Pursh settled in Canada and managed to collect some 1,000 specimens in the hope of producing a flora of Canada, but he was unable to do so as he died in Montreal aged just 46. His herbarium, acquired by A.B. Lambert, was sold and dispersed with many specimens now found at institutions in England.
Sources:
J.W. Harshberger, 1899, Botanists of Philadelphia: 113-117
H.B. Humphrey, 1961, The Makers of North American Botany: 202-204
H.S. Miller, 1970, "The Herbarium of Aylmer Bourke Lambert: Notes On Its Acquisition, Dispersal and Present Whereabouts", Taxon, 19(4): 536-537
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).
