Biography

Scottish horticulturalist and assistant botanist on the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) led by C. Wilkes. Born at Ayr he was trained as a gardener and soon took charge of Dr P. Neill's grounds in Canonmills, Edinburgh. Later he travelled to Europe to gain more experience, working on an estate in Poland and learning from the director of the gardens at Berlin. It was in 1837 that he moved to the United States where he worked for a nurseryman named Robert Buist in Philadelphia and the following year was given the opportunity of travelling and collecting plants on an expedition to the Pacific. The so-called Wilkes expedition (the United States Exploring Expedition) left in 1838 and, with the resignation of Asa Gray who was meant to be the head botanist, his assistant (W. Rich) was promoted and Brackenridge assigned horticulturalist and botanical assistant.

Setting sail on the Vincennes with the naturalist Charles Pickering in the summer, they crossed the Atlantic to Madeira where Brackenridge did his first collecting and then re-crossed to Rio de Janeiro. Here he studied the flora of the Organ Mountains before leaving for Cape Horn in early 1839 and from there sailed up the Chilean coast. Turning to cross the South Pacific they visited the Samoan Islands before arriving in Sydney at the end of the year. From there they explored the Antarctic coast, New Zealand and Fiji and continued on to Hawaii, which the team reached in September 1840 and then remained there for six months, making many important botanical collections. In April 1841 they arrived on the west coast of the United States and made a base on the Columbia River from which Brackenridge was able to explore Puget Sound and Washington State, reaching as far inland as Idaho. Following this the party visited Gray's Harbour before travelling overland to San Francisco, the journey on which Brackenridge made the first discoverey of the pitcher plant genus Chrysamphora Greene. Once more crossing the Pacific, the Vincennes stopped for some time at the Philippines before returning to New York in 1842 via Singapore, the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena.

It has been estimated that around 10,000 species of plants were collected on this expedition, with two or three duplicates of each, as well as several hundred living plants and countless seeds. The collections made on this trip eventually formed the nucleus of the National Museum at the Smithsonian Institution and Brackenridge was put in charge of the cultivation of the living material, which he undertook in a greenhouse at the Patent Office, and later at the National Mall, in Washington D.C. His other responsibility was the fern section of the expedition's report, but Brackenridge's knowledge of plant descriptive taxonomy and Latin was lacking and so John Torrey and Asa Gray were ultimately responsible for the final edits of this work. His Filices, including Lycopodiaceae and Hydrioterides was published as a quarto volume in 1854 and as a folio complete with plates in 1855. Unfortunately, both the government set of copies and Brackenridge's own were destroyed in two separate fires in Washington and Philadelphia respectively. All but about ten copies, which were sold to customers in Europe, were lost, although the library of the New York Botanical Garden managed to obtain a copy of the folio edition. Rich's report of the rest of the expedition's botanical findings was, on the other hand, deemed too poor to publish. Brackenridge spent the rest of his life as a landscape architect and nurseryman. Living on an estate he purchased in 1885 near Baltimore, Maryland, he designed many impressive estates in the region and edited the journal American Farmer for some years.

Sources:
J.H. Barnhart, 1919, "Brackenridge and his Book on Ferns", Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, 10(234): 117-124
J. Ewan, 1950, Rocky Mountain Naturalists: 168.

Biography

Scottish horticulturalist and assistant botanist on the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) led by C. Wilkes. Born at Ayr he was trained as a gardener and soon took charge of Dr P. Neill's grounds in Canonmills, Edinburgh. Later he travelled to Europe to gain more experience, working on an estate in Poland and learning from the director of the gardens at Berlin. It was in 1837 that he moved to the United States where he worked for a nurseryman named Robert Buist in Philadelphia and the following year was given the opportunity of travelling and collecting plants on an expedition to the Pacific. The so-called Wilkes expedition (the United States Exploring Expedition) left in 1838 and, with the resignation of Asa Gray who was meant to be the head botanist, his assistant (W. Rich) was promoted and Brackenridge assigned horticulturalist and botanical assistant.

Setting sail on the Vincennes with the naturalist Charles Pickering in the summer, they crossed the Atlantic to Madeira where Brackenridge did his first collecting and then re-crossed to Rio de Janeiro. Here he studied the flora of the Organ Mountains before leaving for Cape Horn in early 1839 and from there sailed up the Chilean coast. Turning to cross the South Pacific they visited the Samoan Islands before arriving in Sydney at the end of the year. From there they explored the Antarctic coast, New Zealand and Fiji and continued on to Hawaii, which the team reached in September 1840 and then remained there for six months, making many important botanical collections. In April 1841 they arrived on the west coast of the United States and made a base on the Columbia River from which Brackenridge was able to explore Puget Sound and Washington State, reaching as far inland as Idaho. Following this the party visited Gray's Harbour before travelling overland to San Francisco, the journey on which Brackenridge made the first discoverey of the pitcher plant genus Chrysamphora Greene. Once more crossing the Pacific, the Vincennes stopped for some time at the Philippines before returning to New York in 1842 via Singapore, the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena.

It has been estimated that around 10,000 species of plants were collected on this expedition, with two or three duplicates of each, as well as several hundred living plants and countless seeds. The collections made on this trip eventually formed the nucleus of the National Museum at the Smithsonian Institution and Brackenridge was put in charge of the cultivation of the living material, which he undertook in a greenhouse at the Patent Office, and later at the National Mall, in Washington D.C. His other responsibility was the fern section of the expedition's report, but Brackenridge's knowledge of plant descriptive taxonomy and Latin was lacking and so John Torrey and Asa Gray were ultimately responsible for the final edits of this work. His Filices, including Lycopodiaceae and Hydrioterides was published as a quarto volume in 1854 and as a folio complete with plates in 1855. Unfortunately, both the government set of copies and Brackenridge's own were destroyed in two separate fires in Washington and Philadelphia respectively. All but about ten copies, which were sold to customers in Europe, were lost, although the library of the New York Botanical Garden managed to obtain a copy of the folio edition. Rich's report of the rest of the expedition's botanical findings was, on the other hand, deemed too poor to publish. Brackenridge spent the rest of his life as a landscape architect and nurseryman. Living on an estate he purchased in 1885 near Baltimore, Maryland, he designed many impressive estates in the region and edited the journal American Farmer for some years.

Sources:
J.H. Barnhart, 1919, "Brackenridge and his Book on Ferns", Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, 10(234): 117-124
J. Ewan, 1950, Rocky Mountain Naturalists: 168.

Biography

Scottish horticulturalist and assistant botanist on the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) led by C. Wilkes. Born at Ayr he was trained as a gardener and soon took charge of Dr P. Neill's grounds in Canonmills, Edinburgh. Later he travelled to Europe to gain more experience, working on an estate in Poland and learning from the director of the gardens at Berlin. It was in 1837 that he moved to the United States where he worked for a nurseryman named Robert Buist in Philadelphia and the following year was given the opportunity of travelling and collecting plants on an expedition to the Pacific. The so-called Wilkes expedition (the United States Exploring Expedition) left in 1838 and, with the resignation of Asa Gray who was meant to be the head botanist, his assistant (W. Rich) was promoted and Brackenridge assigned horticulturalist and botanical assistant.

Setting sail on the Vincennes with the naturalist Charles Pickering in the summer, they crossed the Atlantic to Madeira where Brackenridge did his first collecting and then re-crossed to Rio de Janeiro. Here he studied the flora of the Organ Mountains before leaving for Cape Horn in early 1839 and from there sailed up the Chilean coast. Turning to cross the South Pacific they visited the Samoan Islands before arriving in Sydney at the end of the year. From there they explored the Antarctic coast, New Zealand and Fiji and continued on to Hawaii, which the team reached in September 1840 and then remained there for six months, making many important botanical collections. In April 1841 they arrived on the west coast of the United States and made a base on the Columbia River from which Brackenridge was able to explore Puget Sound and Washington State, reaching as far inland as Idaho. Following this the party visited Gray's Harbour before travelling overland to San Francisco, the journey on which Brackenridge made the first discoverey of the pitcher plant genus Chrysamphora Greene. Once more crossing the Pacific, the Vincennes stopped for some time at the Philippines before returning to New York in 1842 via Singapore, the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena.

It has been estimated that around 10,000 species of plants were collected on this expedition, with two or three duplicates of each, as well as several hundred living plants and countless seeds. The collections made on this trip eventually formed the nucleus of the National Museum at the Smithsonian Institution and Brackenridge was put in charge of the cultivation of the living material, which he undertook in a greenhouse at the Patent Office, and later at the National Mall, in Washington D.C. His other responsibility was the fern section of the expedition's report, but Brackenridge's knowledge of plant descriptive taxonomy and Latin was lacking and so John Torrey and Asa Gray were ultimately responsible for the final edits of this work. His Filices, including Lycopodiaceae and Hydrioterides was published as a quarto volume in 1854 and as a folio complete with plates in 1855. Unfortunately, both the government set of copies and Brackenridge's own were destroyed in two separate fires in Washington and Philadelphia respectively. All but about ten copies, which were sold to customers in Europe, were lost, although the library of the New York Botanical Garden managed to obtain a copy of the folio edition. Rich's report of the rest of the expedition's botanical findings was, on the other hand, deemed too poor to publish. Brackenridge spent the rest of his life as a landscape architect and nurseryman. Living on an estate he purchased in 1885 near Baltimore, Maryland, he designed many impressive estates in the region and edited the journal American Farmer for some years.

Sources:
J.H. Barnhart, 1919, "Brackenridge and his Book on Ferns", Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, 10(234): 117-124
J. Ewan, 1950, Rocky Mountain Naturalists: 168.