Frederick Traugott Pursh
Encyclopedia
Frederick Traugott Pursh (or Friedrich Traugott Pursch) (February 4, 1774 – July 11, 1820) was a German-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 botanist.

Born in Grossenhain, Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

, to the name Friedrich Traugott Pursh, he was educated at Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 Botanical Gardens, and emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1799. From 1802 to 1805 he worked in Philadelphia as the botanical manager of the extensive gardens of William Hamilton
William Hamilton
-Europeans:Politicians and noblemen*William Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Hamilton , Scottish nobleman*William Douglas-Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton , Scottish Nobleman*William Hamilton , Lord Chancellor of England...

, Esq., "The Woodlands." By 1805, he was working for Benjamin Smith Barton on a new flora of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, under who he studied the plants collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, or ″Corps of Discovery Expedition" was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William...

. His work with Barton allowed him to travel farther afield. In 1805, he traveled south from Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 to the Carolinas and in 1806, he traveled north from the mountains of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 to New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

. He made both trips principally on foot, with only his dog and a gun, covering over three thousand miles each season.

Barton's proposed flora was never written, but Pursh, who then moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, did make a major contribution to North American botany in his Flora americae septentrionalis; or A Systematic Arrangement and Description of The Plants of North America, (variously dated as published in 1813 or 1814. The complete book can be read on-line at http://www.botanicus.org/title/b11729004 ). He then returned to America, moving to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in 1816. He botanized a great deal in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, but all the material he accumulated was destroyed by fire before it could be organized into suitable form for publication. His hopes of carrying out further major work were prevented by ill health due to alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

.

He was so destitute when he died in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 that his funeral expenses had to be defrayed by his friends. His remains lay in the Papineau Road cemetery until 1857, when they were moved to the Mount Royal Cemetery. A proper monument was paid for by subscription. It read as follows:
Frederick Pursh,
Obt. 1820, AEt. 46.
Erected
By Members of the
Natural History Society
of Montreal
1878.


His name is commemorated in the genus Purshia
Purshia
Purshia is a small genus of 5-8 species of flowering plants in the family Rosaceae, native to western North America, where they grow in dry climates from southeast British Columbia in Canada south throughout the western United States to northern Mexico. The classification of Purshia within the...

(Bitterbush) and in several species, e.g., Rhamnus purshiana
Buckthorn
The Buckthorns are a genus of about 100 species of shrubs or small trees from 1-10 m tall , in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae...

.

External links

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