Q&A: André Michaux, French Botanist Exploring America in the Time of George Washington--A Virtual Discussion

Select answers from Charles Williams and Eliane Norman, editors of André Michaux in North America Journals and Letters, 1785-1796

Q: Are any plants that Michaux documented now extinct?

CW: Many plants that Michaux documented in North America have been extirpated from the locales where he found them because of local habitat destruction, but we are not aware of any that have become extinct. However, some of Michaux's plants are now rare, so there is cause for concern. Bruce A. Sorrie, then with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, and now retired, authored a notable study presented at the 2002 André Michaux International Symposium. Sorrie's "The Status of Rare Vascular Plants that Bear Michaux's Name" treated nineteen rare plant species and reported that two were then federally listed as endangered while nine more were federal species of concern. His work was published in Castanea, Occasional Papers in Eastern Botany no. 2 (2004) and is accessible via JSTOR.   

EN: I am not aware of any. Of course, Franklinia is a Bartram discovery; Michaux collected specimens, but no data is given.

 

Q: The planned expedition for Michaux funded by the APS sounds an awful lot like the Lewis & Clark expedition! Did the planning for it influence Jefferson's plans for the latter?

CW: Indeed, planning the APS expedition for Michaux appears to have been something of a practice run for Jefferson. Many of the interesting documents are posted on the Library of Congress website and chapter nine of our book reproduces these documents. One might also examine vol. 25 of the "Papers of Thomas Jefferson" edited by John Catanzariti, Princeton University Press.

EN: Definitely. His text spelling out what Michaux's exploration would entail is very similar to the one he wrote for the Lewis and Clark expedition.

 

Q: Where are Michaux's herbarium specimens?

CW: Michaux's herbarium of North American plants is housed as a separate collection within the French national herbarium at the Museum National d'Historie Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris. There are about 500 additional Michaux specimens in the herbarium of his colleague Anton-Laurent de Jussieu also housed as a separate collection at the MNHN. When Michaux gave these specimens to Jussieu in 1797, they were duplicates of specimens in his own herbarium, but today the Shortia specimen he gave to Jussieu is the only one that can be found. There are also Michaux specimens in Geneva and perhaps elsewhere. The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia also has a small collection of seeds from Michaux.

 

Q: Did Michaux engage with Native Americans to get information on plants used for food, medicine, etc.?

CW: Yes, he recorded interactions with the Cherokees in the Carolinas, as well as other tribes in Canada and Illinois. He noted plant remedies several times in his journal. Some examples in our book are: rheumatism and skin problems (p. 170), scurvy & venereal diseases (p. 280), scabies, purgative (p. 286), jaundice, venereal diseases, laxative (p.  288). There is a short discussion of Michaux's connection with medicinal plants in the paper presented to the American Pharmaceutical Association in 1962 by Clifton F. Lord Jr. and Martha Jane K. Zachert "The Botanical Garden of André Michaux near Charleston, 1786-1802." Unfortunately, it is only available on interlibrary loan from a handful of institutions.

EN: Several times. He interacted with the Cherokees in the Carolinas and other tribes in Canada and Illinois. He noted throughout his journal several remedies, i.e for rheumatism (p. 170), skin (p. 170), scurvy (p. 280), scabies, purgative (p. 286), venereal diseases (p. 288, 508).

 

Q: So delighted to be able to hear Charlie talking about this wonderful new book! And so pleased to hear more about the NJ garden. We're going to try make sure it is not forgotten!

CW: We certainly hope that change can be implemented and this historic site can be appropriately marked in the future.

 

Q: Did Michaux and William Bartram interact much?

CW: Michaux visited with the Bartrams each time he was in Philadelphia. He also corresponded with them and sent them seeds and plants. Both William and John Bartram, Jr. were definitely Americans that Michaux respected and considered his friends. His son François André later extolled their friendship in a letter to William Bartram that has survived.

EN: Yes, Michaux visited the Bartrams five or six times. Michaux would send them or bring seeds of plants that might be of interest. William Bartram told him of places that he visited that would be worthwhile.

 

Q: How did Michaux travel?

CW: Most of Michaux's travels were overland on the poor roads of the day by foot and horseback. At times in the back districts he lost his horses to thieves or they wandered away, but he always managed to find or replace them and continue his journeys. Early in his residence in the US, he rode the regular stagecoach between New York and Philadelphia, but this was an exception.  When there was a water route, he traveled in the available watercraft. In Florida he traveled by dugout canoe and in the Canadian wilderness by birch bark canoe. He traversed Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence in bateaux. He sailed up and down the Hudson River on a sloop, and traveled on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Cumberland Rivers in substantial river barges equipped with oars and sails.

 

Q: Were there donkeys in America?

CW: Michaux did not record any encounters with donkeys or people employing donkeys. All of his travels were east of the Mississippi and those animals were more likely to be found in the Spanish lands west of the river.

 

Q: I had read that the root of Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla) that Michaux collected was the first to produce a flower for botanists in Philadelphia. Is that true?

CW: Yes, Michaux collected live plants of this species when it was in fruit and described it in botanical terms in his journal entry for July 3, 1789 (p. 127-128, 304, 452, 517).  He was then 35 miles northeast of Abingdon in Smyth County, Virginia on his way to Philadelphia and New York. He gave the plants to his friends the Bartrams about three weeks later. Benjamin Smith Barton later obtained it from the Bartrams and after study and presenting a paper about the plant to the APS, named it for Jefferson. The volume by Joseph and Nesta Ewan, Benjamin Smith Barton, Naturalist and Physician in Jeffersonian America (Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2007), tells a part of this story on p. 276.    

EN: Michaux found it in Virginia, gave some to the Bartrams, who grew it. Benjamin Smith Barton saw it and gave it its genus name "Jeffersonia."

 

Q: Can you comment on any extensive associations with the Bartram family of botanists or William Hamilton of the Woodlands who had hothouses on his property and imported and exported America’s plants to England?

CW: Michaux visited William Hamilton several times. Unfortunately, most of Hamilton's correspondence is lost but a surviving letter suggests that Michaux discussed plants in depth with Hamilton and one of his gardeners. Michaux also gave plants to Hamilton, including Zelkova, trees that Michaux had brought back to France from his voyage to the Middle East before he came to America. This row of large trees survived at the Woodlands until the 1900's. Curator Joel Fry at Bartram's Garden has old photographs and knowledge of these trees.

Michaux had a warm relationship with the Bartrams. During his visits to Philadelphia he even boarded his horses at their farm. Early in his American travels he visited areas in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida that William Bartram had visited in the 1770s searching for plants that Bartram had told him about; an example is Bartram's "Magnolia montana" (M. fraseri) that Michaux mentioned in 1788 (p. 112). A letter from Michaux to John Bartram Jr. from 1791 (p. 159) shows that Michaux sent live M. fraseri plants to the Bartrams that he had likely obtained on this 1788 expedition. This relationship only deepened over time. In a letter from Charleston Nov. 14, 1794, Michaux mentioned to Rev. Nicholas Collin in Philadelphia: "I have the custom of sending to Mr. Bartram everything that one can find here." This relationship continued when Michaux's son returned to America in the early 1800s.

EN: Michaux visited William Hamilton several times and Michaux gave him plants, including Zelkova, trees that M. had brought back to France from his voyage to the Near East before he came to America. This row of large trees existed at the Woodlands until the 1900's.

 

Q: What plants did Michaux introduce to America?

CW: Over the years there have been a number of articles in popular magazines crediting Michaux with introducing old world plants to America and the evidence shows that he clearly did do this, but information on specifics is often lacking. For instance, when he became an honorary member of the Agricultural Society of Charleston, Michaux simply offered any of the plants growing in his garden that were not of North American origin to these men and no records seem to have been kept. The late James R. Cothran, the distinguished Atlanta landscape architect and landscape historian who authored Gardens of Historic Charleston (University of South Carolina Press, 1995), addressed the issue of Michaux's plant introductions at the 2002 André Michaux International Symposium. His study "Treasured Ornamentals of Southern Gardens-Michaux's Lasting Legacy" was published in Castanea, Occasional Papers in Eastern Botany no. 2 (2004) and is also accessible in the JSTOR database.  

 

Q: Did Michaux discover the magnolia?

CW: In addition to the familiar evergreen, Magnolia grandiflora, there are six (some taxonomists say seven) species of deciduous magnolias native to eastern North America.  Michaux discovered one of the deciduous magnolias, the bigleaf magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla. My study of Michaux and this species "André Michaux and the Discovery Magnolia macrophylla in North Carolina" appears in Castanea, vol. 64, no. 1 (March 1999), and is available in the JSTOR database.

 

Q: Did Michaux correspond with Alexander von Humboldt?

CW: We have only seen only one letter from Humboldt to Michaux about the growth of trees in North America when he had already returned to Paris. It might be of interest to see if there is an answer to his query in the Humboldt archives.

 

Q: Did Michaux and Humboldt meet?

CW: They certainly could have, and would have even traveled together had Bouganville been selected to lead the expedition to the south seas that Nicholas Baudin eventually did lead and Michaux joined, but we have not seen evidence that the two men actually met although they were in Paris at the same time.

 

Q: Did Michaux use enslaved persons to work on his farm in Charleston?

CW: Yes, it is documented that he did take advantage of the labor system he found in South Carolina at that time. The enslaved persons helped him in collecting and planting and the upkeep of his garden. Michaux specifically mentions that an enslaved person accompanied him on some of his early collecting journeys. Later during his residence in Charleston he also seems to have thought so well of some of them that he essentially left his garden in their care while he traveled to the Mississippi in 1795-1796. Perhaps surprised by such an unusual arrangement, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt specifically mentioned it in his memoir of visiting Michaux's garden in March and April 1796. Michaux also brought back to France a young boy whom he trained in natural history, collecting and preserving specimens. He later accompanied Michaux to Madagascar.