Professor Rydberg Sends a Map

"I have made a tracing of a map of the park … 

I have tried to copy his routes thereon as well as that of myself and Mr. Bessey"

It’s such a treat to meet and get to know the early pioneering botanists of the American West! Of course it doesn’t happen often. They don’t attend meetings nor visit herbaria, at least not during the light of day. And I can’t just zip off an email explaining my interest in their work. Why? Because, unfortunately, they’ve all been dead for years.

But occasionally they speak to me through some relic—a plant specimen, a field book, a letter. I post about these encounters in my Letter to the Earth series. The most recent was with PA Rydberg, through his map of Yellowstone National Park.

In 1898, Professor Rydberg of Upsala College in Roselle, New Jersey, was preparing a Catalogue of the Flora of Montana and the Yellowstone National Park. He was in frequent correspondence—on the order of one letter per month—with Professor Aven Nelson at the University of Wyoming, who was collecting plants to document the regional flora. It was a wonderful time and place to be a botanist. So many discoveries awaited—first reports of species from the region, and even novelties (species new to science). Nelson and Rydberg discussed at length plant identification and classification, and the validity of various novelties.

Studying Rocky Mountain plants was not easy. The flora was poorly known, there were few treatments (books), and debates over classification raged. Compounding the problem, botanists in the region worked in relative isolation. Communication was slow, travel expensive. They discussed taxonomic problems by letter—hard to imagine given the complexity of the subject.

Discussion could be heated (this hasn’t changed). In this letter to Nelson, Rydberg sarcastically refers to botanist Edward L. Greene as an “expert” who can somehow make taxonomic decisions based on minimal material. Greene had rejected Rydberg's new species, Antennaria microphylla (considered valid today).
Click on image to read.

In the fall of 1898, Nelson notified Rydberg that he would be working in Yellowstone National Park the next summer. In his reply, Rydberg explained what Nelson probably already knew:

“The flora of the park is, however well worked up as several collectors have been in there, viz., the Hayden Survey, C.C. Parry, Letteman, Burglehous, &c. The one that has done the most, however, is Frank Tweedy of the U.S. Geological Survey. He spent two whole summers in the park."

Engineer-turned-botanist Frank Tweedy collected a rush in Yellowstone National Park that Rydberg named in his honor—Juncus tweedyi. Type specimen from the National Museum of Natural History (label enlarged).

Rydberg recommended that Nelson focus on unexplored parts of the Park:

"I would advise you to select the mountains east and south east of Yellowstone Lake. None of the collectors that I know of has collected in that region. Tweedy only touched it at the south end of the Lake.”

The following spring, Rydberg again urged Nelson to work in the southern part of the Park. This time he sent a map.

I felt a rush of excitement when I found Rydberg's map in the University archives. Holding it, it seemed he had sent it to me—maybe because it was hand-drawn, or because he didn't cut the tracing paper straight. Or maybe because he explained exactly how he made it:

“Mr. F. Tweedy has kindly sent me a map, on which he has indicated the routes he has traveled in the Park. I have made a tracing of a map of the park. It is of a small scale and many times smaller than that he sent to me, but I have tried to copy his routes thereon as well as that of myself and Mr. Bessey in 1897.”

Click on image to view.

Rydberg's map and advice were clear and persuasive:

“From that you can see that the park has been gone over fairly well. Add to this the collections made in the Park during the Hayden Surveys, by Parry, Dr. Hall, Miss Compton, and others, it is safe to say that it has already received its good share. The south-east and southwest corners are not well known, however. I should advise you to spend a good deal of time in the region south-east of Yellowstone Lake, if you can do so. Especially do I think that you will find the high mountain range on the east a profitable field.”

Excellent advice, Professor Rydberg, I agree completely. But, alas, I won't be going. The map and advice were for Aven Nelson.

Nelson spent 14 weeks in the Park with his wife, their young daughters, and two student assistants. It was a rare opportunity. Though Yellowstone was already popular with tourists (9579 came in 1899), only the affluent could afford to visit.

L to R: Daughters Helen and Neva, student assistant Leslie Goodding, Mrs. Nelson. In the back of the wagon are stacks of felt blotters and white paper for pressing and drying plants. They carried thousands of sheets.

The Nelson party traveled by horse-drawn wagon, camping out the entire time. In 14 weeks they collected, pressed and dried 30,000 specimens—an astonishing number given the working conditions. But they did not go to the areas recommended by Rydberg.

Nelson left no record as to why. Perhaps it was lack of wagon roads, or because they had lost a student assistant (Elias Nelson stepped into scalding hot mud, burning his leg so badly that he had to be sent home). Perhaps—in fact probably—Nelson wanted to collect as many specimens as possible to add to the herbarium at the University of Wyoming (today's Rocky Mountain Herbarium). Sticking to roads maximized collections.

After the expedition, Rydberg and Nelson continued to correspond on taxonomic issues. But there’s no evidence that they discussed Yellowstone—no questions from Rydberg as to why Nelson collected only in the parts of the Park that had been “gone over fairly well.” For now, the reasons remain a mystery.

Memories of Summer Grasslands

The “flowers” in this bedraggled bouquet are from a plant that was blooming in my yard just a few weeks ago ... in early November at 7000 feet elevation in Laramie, Wyoming! That’s how unusually-mild this fall has been. I cut the flowering stems in advance of a hard frost. They make for a disheveled arrangement, but I like their company, and it's been interesting to watch the progression from “bud” to “flower” to “seed.”

Up close, there’s still plenty of beauty:

"bud"

"flower"

"seeds"

This plant has many names: gaillardia, blanket flower, fire wheel and others. A single native gaillardia grows in Wyoming—G. aristata. It’s a common summer wildflower in grasslands on the plains, and sometimes in the mountains. The ones in my yard came from a xeric seed mix, so they might be the common hybrid G. aristata X G. pulchellum.

Why quotation marks? (“bud” “flower” “seeds”) Because gaillardia is a composite, a member of the Asteraceae (aster family). In this family, things are not as they seem.

The scientific name for the aster family used to be, appropriately, Compositae. Like all composites, gaillardia is a trickster. The “flower” actually is a cluster of many flowers—therefore a flower head. What we might think are sepals below the “petals” are actually bracts called phyllaries, and what we might think is a petal is actually a ray flower. What looks like a seed is actually a dry single-seeded fruit—like a "sunflower seed” before you split the hull to get the true seed. Devious plants!!

Unopened head, a cluster of flower buds surrounded by bracts (phyllaries).

Gaillardia has both ray and disc flowers (some composites have only rays or only discs); each flower has an ovary that will produce one seed.

Flower head with ten ray flowers and about eight disc flowers; phyllaries visible behind.

A few disc flowers continue to bloom after the rays have fallen off.

The heads I rescued are small, few-flowered and mostly red. Maybe that's the best a plant can do so late in the season. Here's a gaillardia mid-summer (note bumblebees and feet in sandals):

Gaillardia fruit (cypselas, found in all composites) have silky white hairs and papery long-tipped scales. Each cypsela contains a seed.

Cypselas, not quite 1 cm long.

Stems, leaves, and phyllaries are usually hairy; how much depends on the plant. Longer hairs are jointed (click on images to see).

It’s hard to decide which common name to use. I like “fire wheel” because the flower heads have that kind of brilliance in summer grasslands. But “blanket flower” seems to be more common, at least around here. And there's a neat story behind it:

The Blanket Maker was an old man, and he knew he would die soon. His burial blanket would have to be the prettiest one he had ever woven, so he used the golds, yellows and reds that he loved so well. This would be his gift to the Great Spirit, as he explained to his family.

When the old man died, his family followed his wishes. Thus he was wearing his colorful blanket when he met the Great Spirit, who was impressed with its beauty. But He realized that only those who had passed would be able to enjoy it. So He decreed that wildflowers with the colors of the old man’s blanket would bloom every year for all to enjoy. [Paraphrased from ZM Kirkpatrick’s Wildflowers of the Western Plains; no source given.] 

It feels a tiny bit warmer with fire wheels in the room.