David Douglas was a scientist that studied plants. At the age of eleven, David dropped out of school. He then started to garden. He got an urge for adventure. His first trip to the Pacific Northwest was from 1825-1827. His second trip was from 1830-1832. He found plants for science and named many of them. Some of the plants he named or wrote about were the Pacific Silver Fir, the Douglas Squirrel, Douglas-fir, the Sugarpine, Currants and Gooseberries, Salal, Camas, Beargrass, and Irises. He worked for the Royal Horticultural Society. His job was to ship seeds or cuttings from foreign lands. The way he traveled in the Northwest was by canoe or by foot. When he got to Fort Vancouver he thought it was "sublimely grand".
Source(s):
Johansen, Dorothy O. Empire of the Columbia. Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1967
Mathews, Daniel. Cascade-Olympic Natural History. Raven Editions,
1988