Page 67 - Early Naturalists of the Black Range
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Plantæ Wrightianæ
Plantae Wrightiane - Texano-Neo-Mexicanae: An Account of a Collection of Plants Made by Charles Wright... is one of the seminal works of southwestern botany. That it would be regarded as such was not lost on Asa Gray. In a letter to Wright on Jan. 23, 1852 he noted that Plantae Wrightiane is “the most important memoir I ever wrote . . . and will indelibly fix our names on the Texas-N. Mexican Flora.”
At page 12 of Part II, Gray describes Thelypodium wrightii (photo gallery) like this:
Canyon in the Black Range (just below Emory Pass on the east slope).
Wright collected specimens of this species “at the coppermines” (Santa Rita) on August 6, 1851. He had collected the type specimen for this species in Texas in October 1849. The isotype of that specimen is shown on the right side of the specimen sheet shown here. An isotype is a duplicate specimen of the holotype (original specimen) collected at the same time. The plant on the left side of the specimen sheet is the specimen Wright collected in the mountains at the copper mine on August 6, 1851. The photographs of this species, shown here, were taken at the spring at the head of Southwest
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