Chasing Lewis's monkeyflower : the amazing afterlife of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's wild plants
(2026)

Nonfiction

Book

Call Numbers:
NEW 580.973/ADELMAN,E

Availability

Locations Call Number Status
New & Popular Genl Nonfic NEW 580.973/ADELMAN,E Available

Details

PUBLISHED
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026
©2026
EDITION
First edition
DESCRIPTION

x, 354 pages, 16 unnumbered leaves of unnumbered plates : color illustrations, color map ; 22 cm

ISBN/ISSN
9780374615024, 0374615020, 9780374615024 CIPO000331583, 0374615020
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Preface -- Introduction -- The created the expedition -- The expedition and its plants -- American comet -- Dishonesty, deceit, and theft : dividing the plants -- Frederick Pursh and the first book of American plants from the Atlantic to the Pacific -- An accidental hero : Edward Tuckerman -- And then there were more -- Epilogue: Fifteen expedition plants to grow -- Appendix: List of plants collected or seen on the expedition

A look at the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the plant specimens the great explorers gathered on their way--and of their amazing afterlife. Elizabeth Adelman's Chasing the Missing Monkeyflower is the two hundred-year saga of finding, losing, and finding the wild plants collected on America's first exploration west, the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Thomas Jefferson handpicked Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition, gather notable specimens along the way, and then write the journals, with one volume to include science-worthy descriptions and classifications of the plants that Lewis collected and pressed to preserve. Not a botanist, Lewis needed help to write this part of the journals. Ambition, deceit, theft, wealth, debt, alcoholism, loss, suicide, serendipity, and stubborn persistence cross the plants' paths in Philadelphia, New York, and London. This is the first work detailing the places, practices, and times of a cavalcade of people who touched the plants. A fascinating chronicle of an unexplored byway of the great American story

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