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Pinus albicaulis was discovered on the 23d of September, 1851, on the mountains rising fromthe valley of the lower Fraser River , 1 by John Jeffrey, 2 who sent the seeds to Scotland , where a fewplants were raised. It grows very slowly in cultivation and has little to recommend it as an ornamentof the park or garden. On bleak mountain slopes, however, struggling bravely on the advance lineof the forest against the hardships which cannot subdue it, Pinus albicaulis is one of the mostpicturesque and interesting coniferous trees of North America .
1 “ Pinus sp. no. 398. Found on the summit of a mountain nearFort Hope, Fraser’s River . I could only find a few specimens ofthis tree on which there were few cones. The few that were, Cor-vus Columbianus had deprived them of nearly all their seeds.Leaves in fives, short and rigid ; cones small, nearly round; barksmooth; tree 30 ft. by 1 foot diameter ; growing on granite de-cayed. Lat. 50° ; elevation 7,000 feet. Sept. 23d, 1851.” (Froman unpublished and undated letter of Jeffrey to Professor J. H.Balfour preserved in the herbarium of the Royal Gardens at Edin burgh .)
2 The birthplace of John Jeffrey and the dates of his birth anddeath are unknown. On the 22d of November, 1849, a meeting ofgentlemen interested in the promotion of arboriculture and hor-ticulture in Scotland was held at the Botanic Garden in Edin burgh . At this meeting it was decided to send to western North America a botanist to collect the seeds of trees, shrubs, and otherplants suitable for the decoration of gardens, in the regions trav-ersed by David Douglas, and “ to complete his researches and toextend them into those parts of the country not fully explored byhim.” A fund was raised to pay the expenses of this expedition,the subscribers organizing under the chairmanship of ProfessorJ. H. Balfour, and designating themselves the Oregon BotanicalAssociation. John Jeffrey, a young gardener, was selected by theassociation to carry out its work ; and early in June, 1860, hesailed for Hudson Bay. On April 7, 1851, Jeffrey wrote to Pro-fessor Balfour, from Jaspar House on the head-waters of theAthabasca River in the Rocky Mountains , that he had left YorkFactory on the 20th of August of the previous year, and, travel-og on foot, had reached Cumberland House, on the Saskatche wan , on the 6th of October and had remained there until January,1851, when he proceeded up the Saskatchewan , reaching JasparHouse on the 21st of March. From Jaspar House Jeffrey crossed
the Rocky Mountains by the Athabasca Pass, reached the Colum bia River , and descended it to Fort Colville, a few miles abovethe mouth of Colville River, where he arrived about the 30th ofMay, 1851. Thence he traveled to the northwest to the Fraser River , which he descended to Vancouver Island , continuing tocollect during the remainder of the season in southern British Co lumbia and about Mt. Baker in northern Washington , and prob-ably exploring higher altitudes than any of his predecessors, as hediscovered at this time such alpine trees as Pinus albicaulis andPatton’s Spruce . The following year he went southward to Wash ington and Oregon as far as Mt. Shasta, and on Scott Mountainin northern California discovered Pinus Balfouriana and Pinus Jef-freyi. In 1853 Jeffrey continued to collect in southern Oregon andnorthern California , and in the autumn of that year reached San Francisco . The plants collected by him in 1853 were the last thatJeffrey sent to Edinburgh , and his connection with the associationceased at this time. Afterward he appears to have gone to San Diego , California , with the intention of crossing the Colorado Desert to Fort Yuma ; and in attempting to penetrate the desert alone heprobably perished of thirst, as nothing more was heard of him.(See Coville, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington , xi. 57 [ The Itinerary ofJohn Jeffrey, an early Botanical Explorer of western North America ].)
In one of the printed lists of plants collected by Jeffrey sentout by Mr. Andrew Murray , the secretary of the Oregon Botani-cal Association, to the subscribers, and, although without date, ap-parently issued in 1853, are first described Abies concolor, here calledPicea lasiocarpa (not Pinus lasiocarpa, Hooker), Pinus Balfouriana,Pinus Jeffreyi, Pinus Murrayana, and Pinus albicaulis, here referredto Pinus flexilis. This now rare paper contains figures of PinusJeffreyi, Pinus albicaulis, Pinus attenuata, here called Pinus tuhercu-lata, Pinus Balfouriana, Pinus Murrayana, Abies concolor, TsugaPattonii, and Libocedrvs decurrens, here called Thuja Craigana.