Home » Scientific Research » Herbarium Collections » Type Collection
The Astor Expedition to the Galapagos (1930)
"When Mr. Vincent Astor decided on going there [to the Galapagos] in the large and speedy yacht Nourmahal, he felt that the voyage should contribute something to the knowledge of a fauna and flora known to be of scientific interest. The writer was invited to recruit a party of naturalists to accompany the ship with this purpose in view."
— C.H. Townsend, from The Astor Expedition to the Galapagos Islands
C.H. Townsend, of the New York Aquarium, recruited James P. Chapin, ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History, Clarence L. Hay, a herpetologist there, and Henry K. Svenson, a botanist at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, to join the expedition. Chapin and Hay were to collect zoological specimens for the museum and live tortoises for the New York Zoological Society. Townsend would collect reef fish and penguins for the aquarium, and Svenson would collect plants and make ecological observations of the vegetation.
They sailed from Miami on March 1, 1930, and arrived in the Galapagos on April 1. Townsend had decided to explore Indefagitable Island (now Isla Santa Cruz) and the little known volcanic mountan at its center, Mount Crocker. Most of the island was a rocky desert dominated by treelike Opuntia cacti and spiny shrubs, but the slopes of the mountain seemed to be covered in forest. In order to reach the mountain, the expedition would have to cross miles of rocky desert under the tropical sun.
Members of the Astor Expedition aboard the Nourmahal. Henry Svenson is fifth from the left.
While half the party fished and collected specimens offshore, a small group landed and began to travel inland. They found long-abandoned trails and followed them around gorges and dry streambeds to the mountain. They set up base camp at the foot of Mount Crocker, where the broken lava rock began to give way to soil. Fortunately, they had hauled gallons of water with them. Though the mountain was covered in a dwarf forest with Miconia trees, shrubs, and ferns growing in the shallow, volcanic soil, there was no surface water to drink.
Three of Astor's friends tried to hack a trail through the dense forest to the summit while Svenson, Hay, and Chapin collected, photographed, and took notes on the plants and animals they found. The party never reached the summit. Injuries and a critical lack of water forced them to turn back, but the slopes of the mountain proved to be a fertile collecting ground for the scientists. Svenson collected over 300 species from the island, including a few new to science. He would later describe Verbena townsendii, Luffa astori, Clerodendron molle var. glabrescens, and Elaterium carthaginense var. cordatum from his collections.
The expedition spent a week on the island, then after a short visit to some of the smaller islands, it brought its collections back to New York. Townsend had collected over 265 reef fishes, which he kept alive in tanks, and a pair of Galapagos penguins, which the members of the expedition treated like pets. Six land tortoises and two land iguanas were brought back for the Zoo, along with hundreds of preserved plants and animals for the Museum of Natural History and Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Svenson's botanical collections, including his types, are preserved in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Herbarium, with duplicates of most of the specimens at the Gray Herbarium at Harvard.
References
Henry Svenson wrote a short report, "The Astor Expedition to the Galapagos," in The Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record. His notes are kept in the library of the Gray Herbarium at Harvard.
Charles Townsend wrote a more detailed report on the expedition, "The Astor Expedition to the Galapagos," in the Bulletin of the New York Zoological Society 33: 134-156. In the same volume, Kermit Roosevelt wrote a short piece on the difficult ascent of Mount Crocker on Isa Santa Cruz, "Mountain Party on Indefagitable Island," pp. 156-163. A detailed piece by Svenson, "The Vegetation of Indefagitble Island" followed, pp. 163-172.
Svenson's account of his scientific work, including descriptions of new taxa, were published in 1935 in "Plants of the Astor Expedition, 1930 (Galapagos and Cocos Islands)," American Journal of Botany 22: 208-277.
There is an excellent illustrated guide to the the plants of the Galapagos by BBG associate Dr. Conley K. McMullen, "Plants of the Galapagos Islands," published in 1999 by Cornell University Press.