Object Record
Images
Metadata
Catalog Number |
PH-LC 12 |
Object Name |
Specimen |
Title |
Ampelopsis cordata |
Other Name |
Raccoon Grape |
Collector |
Meriwether Lewis & William Clark |
Date |
1806 |
Description |
The label information is confusing as the location is given as "near Counsel Bluffs," but supposedly the collection was made on 14 Sep 1806 when Lewis and Clark were in Leavenworth Co., Kansas. The rapidly returning expedition passed Council Bluff in Washington Co., Nebraska on 8 Sep 1806. There are two fragments on the sheet, but they seem to represent only a single collection with a single branch broken into two parts. Coues (1898: 297) lists the plant as Cissus ampelopsis Pers. (Syn. Pl. 1: 142. 1805), a nomenclatural synonym of Ampelopsis cordata. (The Lewis & Clark Herbarium Digital Imagery Study Set, ANSP, 2002) On deposit at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia |
Label |
Starting in 1803, Merriwether Lewis (APS 1803) and William Clark embarked on a 3 year expedition along the Missouri and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Coast. They collected hundreds of plant specimens to carry back to the East Coast. They pressed these plants, attached them to sheets of paper and wrapped them in oilskin to survive the long journey intact. The heart-leaved peppervine, Ampelopsis cordata, was collected by the expedition in September of 1806 in Leavenworth county, Kansas. The plant itself is native to the southern half of the United States and can be identified by its heart-shaped leaves and long vines and tendrils. The peppervine is in the grape family and produces fruit in the late summer, though the fruit produced by this species is inedible. |
Credit line |
American Philosophical Society. Gift of Thomas Jefferson, 1805 - 1806. |
Search Terms |
19th century botany Clark herbarium Lewis nineteenth century plant specimen |
Collection |
The Lewis & Clark Herbarium |