James Drummond (botanist) - Collecting For Hooker

Collecting For Hooker

Although no longer having any financial encouragement to collect, Drummond continued to collect botanical specimens. In 1839 he received a letter from Sir William Jackson Hooker of Kew Gardens, who requested seeds and plants, and offered to dispose of collections on Drummond's behalf. He also invited Drummond to submit written accounts of the botany of the Swan River Colony, which Jackson would publish in his Journal of Botany. A number of Drummond's letters to Hooker were published, and it is these accounts for which Drummond was best known at the time.

Over the next fourteen years, Drummond made numerous collecting expeditions. In August 1839, he made an expedition to Rottnest Island in company with John Gilbert and Ludwig Preiss, and made two journeys into the Guangan that year. In 1840 he undertook an expedition to King George Sound, helping to identify a poisonous plant as the cause of many stock deaths in the area. In 1841 he went in search of good squatting land to the east of their land in Toodyay. The expedition, which included Captain John Scully, Samuel Pole Phillips and Johnston Drummond, discovered the vast tract of open pastoral land that is now known as the Victoria Plains. Following this expedition, Drummond put together what is now known as Drummond's 1st Collection.

Drummond made four expeditions in 1842. The first was to the Vasse district; the second into unexplored territory around the present-day site of the town of Moora; the third into the Wongan Hills with Gilbert and Johnston Drummond; and the four in the south west corner of the colony with Gilbert. In addition to collecting plants, Drummond also made large collections of moss and fungi during 1842 and 1843. The collection that Drummond prepared and dispatched in 1843 became known as Drummond's 2nd Collection.

During late 1843 and 1844, Drummond made a number of journeys with his son Johnston, who was rapidly becoming a highly respected botanical and zoological collector in his own right. Near the end of 1843, the pair made an expedition to the north and east of Bolgart. Shortly afterwards they started on a major expedition to King George Sound, and east as far as Cape Riche. The plants that he collected in this expedition formed what became known as Drummond's 3rd Collection.

In 1844, a severe recession placed the Drummond family in severe financial debt, and the family farm was lost. Drummond and his son Johnston began planning to make their entire living from collecting, discussing going to South Australia or India, but nothing came of it before Johnston Drummond's death in July 1845. In 1845 and 1846, financial difficulties prevented Drummond from undertaking any further expeditions, but late in 1846 he was informed that he had been granted an honorarium of £200 by the British Government for services rendered to botany. He immediately began preparations for another journey. Setting out in company with George Maxwell, he travelled south to the Porongorup and Stirling Range, extensively exploring both, then south to King George Sound and east along the coast for five days. The result was Drummond's 4th Collection, which was complete by July 1847.

He made yet another expedition in 1848, along the south coast to the Mount Barren. He had intended to go further, but the Mount Barren ranges were so rich in new species that there was no need. Drummond's 5th Collection was dispatched to London in June 1849. When Hooker received it he wrote in his Journal that he had "rarely seen so great a number of fine and remarkable species arrive at one time from any country".

In 1850, Drummond joined a surveying expedition that sought to establish a route for overlanding stock to Champion Bay. He spent 1851 in Champion Bay with his son John. He returned to Toodyay in December, and over the next few months he wrote a series of articles on the "Botany of the Northwestern District of Western Australia", which were published in five issues of the Perth Gazette from April 1852, and later republished by Hooker. His 6th Collection, made in Champion Bay the previous year, was put together and shipped near the end of 1852.