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ABSTRACT
André Michaux was a trained botanist who visited North America for eleven years (1785-96) as royal botanist specifically sent to collect plants for France. His explorations resulted in a large collection housed today in the Museum National D'Histoire Naturelle, Laboratoire de Phanerogamie (P), Paris. Michaux collected thousands of specimens for cultivation in his Charleston garden and shipment to France. In addition, he pressed many examples of his collections for inclusion in his herbarium and kept an extensive journal of his activities while in North America. This study concentrates on his activities in the Carolinas. His plant names and descriptions were published as Flora Boreali-Americana in 1803, the year after his death. This publication was not only the first North American flora but also unique in that all the plants described were collected personally by Michaux.
INTRODUCTION
André Michaux arrived in South Carolina on September 21, 1786, after a voyage of 15 days from New York. For the next ten years he used Charleston as his home base as he explored North America and collected its botanical treasures. His activity in the Carolinas was productive, but it occupied only 74 of the 129 months of his stay in North America and its environs. This represents about 57% of his visit to North America from mid-November 1785 to mid-August 1796. Of the 74 months in the Carolinas, 66 months were spent in the Charleston area and low country (including a short trip to Georgia). Therefore, he spent only 11% of his time in the Carolinas actually traveling and collecting in the piedmont and mountains. And, if we relate that to Michaux's total time in North America, only about 6% was spent traveling and collecting in the piedmont and mountains of the Carolinas. He was collecting in the Carolinas for five weeks in 1787, four weeks in 1788, seven weeks in 1789, ten weeks in 1794, three weeks in 1795, and two weeks in 1796 (Figure 1). What remains of plants that he collected and described are located in the National Museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris.
It is noteworthy to consider that Michaux was preceded in the Carolinas by the following collectors: Mark Catesby, John and William Bartram, Thomas Walter, and...