American botanist and physician, Edwin James was a member of S.H. Long's expedition to Colorado and the southern Rocky Mountains in 1820, becoming the first botanist to collect there. From Vermont, he was born in Weybridge, Addison County and graduated from Middlebury College in 1816. At this time he began to study medicine under the tuition of his brother and botany and geology under Amos Eaton and John Torrey. His interest in botany seems to have been deep rooted, for in 1821 he published a catalogue of the plants of the Middlebury region (which was the first flora written for a region of Vermont state) and must have prepared this work while still an undergraduate. James was also a keen geologist and a member of the American Geological Society.

In 1819 plans were underway for an expedition to the upper Missouri, which became known as the Yellowstone Expedition. It was meant as a follow up to the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, to open up land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and to halt any attempts by the British at preventing the westward expansion of the United States. Originally William Baldwin was chosen as botanist and physician on the expedition, but he died in Franklin, Missouri just a few months into the journey. James took over this role and the destination of the expedition changed somewhat. Instead of continuing up the Missouri, they headed south down the southern branch of the Platte River and into Colorado.

Exploring the southern Rocky Mountains during the summer months, James became the first to make botanical collections there and his team were the first to reach the summit of Pikes Peak. Later Stephen Long named the peak after James but popular usage meant that the old name (commemorating Zebulon Pike, the first to see and describe the mountain) was kept. Later a smaller mountain was named James Peak in his honour. This excursion was probably the most important of the expedition, botanically speaking, as it was the first time the alpine flora of the Rocky Mountains had been studied. In August they came across a number of Kaskaskia people and James made ethnographic observations, although by this time he had almost completely ceased botanical collecting.

On his return, James arranged his notes from the journey into an Account of an Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819-1820, which was published in 1823. Although he produced a botanical list and gave names to some of the newly discovered species, it was incomplete and Torrey was responsible for publishing a full catalogue as Descriptions of some new or rare plants from the Rocky Mountains collected in July 1820 by Dr. Edwin James (1828). Arranged according to the natural system it was the first natural history publication on the state of Colorado and the first in the country to use A.L. Jussieu's system.

In 1823 James was due to accompany S.H. Long on his second expedition to the sources of the St. Peters River, but he only received word of his appointment after the team had left. He then worked as an army medic in Wisconsin and Michigan until he resigned in 1834. For the rest of his days James lived a solitary life on his farm in Iowa. Maintaining an interest in Native American culture and particularly language, he became preoccupied with the fate of indigenous Americans and the moralities of western expansion, as well as the abolition movement. A slightly eccentric character he had one son, Edwin James Jr., who became a surveyor. The Hydrangeaceae genus Jamesia was named in his honour by Torrey and Asa Gray.

Sources:
J. Ewan, 1950, Rocky Mountain Naturalists
R.L. Williams, 2003, A Region of Astonishing Beauty: 19-29.