We had a chance to get close and personal with the wildflowers today at Rowena Crest. The Columbia River Gorge Scenic highway gave us an upward-winding path to this plateau decorated with purple flowers of lupine, bright yellow blossoms of arrow-leaf balsamroot, and delicate cream flowers of buckwheat and desert parsley.
Meriwether Lewis was the botanist of the Corps of Discovery. He too took notice of the intricate details of the flora as he collected specimens and wrote detailed descriptions of his findings. Lewis carried with him a copy of Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton's "Elements of Botany: or Outlines of the Natural History of Vegetables," the first textbook of botany written in the United States. Jefferson's instructions to the Expedition included directions to observe "…the dates at which particular plants put forth or lose their flowers, or leaf, times of appearance of particular birds, reptiles or insects…" We too made our botanical observations, in the wake of Lewis and Clark.
