Fragments from the Botanical Frontier:

NEVADA

 
Truck with trailer Percy Train (1876-1942) and Agnes Scott Train (1905-1991) packed their old truck and trailer and headed for the wilds of Nevada, 1939. Hunt Institute collections. Click image to enlarge.

Report Field Notes
Occasionally the Trains had difficulty matching the informant's narrative with the proper plant. Here they tried to definitively identify a plant that their native informant had misnamed. A cross-reference to T3377 shows that Archer did identify the plant in question as a Castilleja. A specimen of Castilleja linariaefolia Benth. collected by Train is located on Panel 8. Hunt Institute collections. While Edith Murphey's interviews with native women repeatedly included birth control information and clear identification of the associated plants, the exchanges on that topic between Percy Train and the men who usually spoke for the tribe were difficult to pin down (see #7). Hunt Institute collections.

The Trains adapted botanical work to the rugged Nevada terrain. Here Percy dries 400 ventilators and blotters on a sagebrush covered mountainside in Big Creek, NV. Morrison called Train "the most expert of our collectors." This photo is undated. Hunt Institute collections. Drying ventilators

PANEL 6

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Douglas Holland doug.holland@mobot.org