Thomas Nuttall

Biography

It is born the January 5th 1786 in the village Preston Length close to Settle in the Yorkshire.
He works first of all as printer with emigrating in the United States where he meets the professor Benjamin Smith Barton with Philadelphia. This one encourages it to study the plants and Nuttall starts to collect specimens for the university of Philadelphia. He becomes the friend of Samuel Washington Woodhouse.
In 1810, it travels in the area of the Big lakes and in 1811 it accompanies the forwarding led by William Price Hunt and financed by John Jacob Astor on the river Missouri. The English botanist John Bradbury, collecting for the Botanical garden of Liverpool accompanies Nuttall. The two botanists leave forwarding when this one arrives in the South Dakota at the counter of draft of the Amerindian Arikara, and continue to go up the river with Ramsay Crooks. In August, they turn over to the Arikara counter and unite with the group of Manuel LISA and thus return to Saint Louis.
The Forwarding Lewis and Clark had already explored this area but the samples collected on this occasion had been lost. This is why, the plants collected by Nuttall are still unknown scientists. The war which prepares between the England and the young people the United States oblige Nuttall to leave the country and to join London. Once in this city, it devotes its time to organize its important collection and to meet others scientifiques.
In 1815, it turns over to America where it herborizes again. It publishes in 1818 The Genera off North American Plants . From 1818 to 1820, he travels in Arkansas and along the Rouges rivers. On its return to Philadelphia, it makes appear its account of voyage, heading Journal off Travels into the Arkansas Territory during the year 1819 . In 1825, he becomes curator of the botanical garden of the university of Harvard. He publishes his Manual off the Ornithology off the United States and off Canada (1832 and 1834).
In 1834, he resigns of his station and sets out again in the west, this time accompanied by the naturalist John Kirk Townsend. He explores the Kansas, the Wyoming and the Utah and descends the Snake river to Columbia. Nuttall crosses the Pacific Ocean to the islands hawaïennes in December. In spring of the year 1835, it herborizes on the peaceful coast in the North-West, an area recently explored by David Douglas. On its return of voyage, it stops with San Diego where it meets Richard Henry Dana, Jr. which takes it for model to draw the character of the old curious in its book, Two Years Before the Mast .
Of 1836 with 1841, Nuttall works with the natural Academy of Science of Philadelphia. During this period, it takes part in the Flora off North America directed by Asa Gray and John Torrey. The death of his/her uncle obliges it to turn over to England to regulate the heritage. Of 1842 with 1849, it publishes North American Sylva: Trees not described by F.A. Michaux , the first work describing all the trees of North America.

Many species, as well vegetable as animal, were dedicated to him like a Green woodpecker, the Pic of Nuttall ( Picoides nuttallii ) by his/her friend William Gambel as well as the Pie with yellow nozzle ( Pica nuttalli ) and the Engoulevent of Nuttall ( Phalaenoptilus nuttallii ) by John James Audubon. Its name is currently carried by an American red oak of the southern center of the United States, Nuttall' S oak ( Quercus texana ).

The Nuttall Ornithological Club, formed in 1873 and which it first ornithological company of the country, bears its name.

List partial of the publications

The generated off North American seedlings , 1818
New generated and species off seedlings , 1840
The North American sylva , 1842-1849.

Bibliographical orientation

Francis W. Pennell (1936). Travels and scientific collections off Thomas Nuttall. Bartonia , Proceedings off the Philadelphia Botanical Club, 18 : 64 p.

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