Botanical Adventure Canoes and Cataloguing: Thomas Nuttall’s Mackinac

July 29, 1810

On this day, dear garden friends, young Thomas Nuttall, a mere stripling of 24 years, embarked upon what one might call a most fortuitous botanical adventure.

With the audacity that only youth and scientific passion can justify, he climbed into a birch bark canoe alongside Aaron Greely, the deputy surveyor of Michigan Territory.

One imagines them, these intrepid souls, paddling with determined strokes through the great waters, their canoe slicing through the pristine lakes like a letter opener through parchment.

Two weeks of such exertion delivered them to Mackinac Island on August 12th. One can only speculate about their conversations during this journey—Greely with his surveyor's precision discussing boundaries and measurements, while Nuttall's mind no doubt wandered to the undiscovered botanical treasures awaiting his trained eye.

Upon reaching Mackinac, Nuttall wasted not a moment. While lesser men might have required rest after such a journey, our botanical hero immediately set about his work with the fervor of a gardener who spots the season's first crocus pushing through February snow.

Let us be perfectly clear, dear readers: Nuttall was no ordinary plant enthusiast with a passing fancy for pretty flowers.

No! He was the first genuine botanist to explore Michigan's flora, and particularly that of Mackinac Island.

The significance cannot be overstated.

With notebook in one hand and collecting tools in the other, he documented approximately sixty species during his island sojourn. And what a triumph!

Nearly twenty of these were previously unknown to science—plants that had grown, bloomed, and faded for countless seasons, patiently waiting for someone with the knowledge to formally acknowledge their existence.

Among his most precious discoveries was the diminutive but exquisite dwarf lake iris (Iris lacustris). This modest beauty, with its vibrant purple-blue petals and golden crests, would later be honored as Michigan's state wildflower—though Nuttall could hardly have predicted such official recognition as he carefully preserved his specimens.

For the dedicated gardener, there is perhaps no greater thrill than being the first to identify a plant, to give a name to what has grown in glorious anonymity.

In this, Nuttall experienced a joy that we can only approximate when we discover some volunteer seedling that has mysteriously appeared in our garden beds.

So when next you encounter this charming iris in its natural habitat, pause a moment to remember young Nuttall and his canoe journey.

In the grand tapestry of botanical history, it is these threads of adventure, discovery, and careful documentation that have given us the rich understanding of plant life we enjoy today.