Aquatic Oklahoma

OCLWA-2018-Nuttall-presentation-cover

Nuttall on aquatic eastern OK in 1819–before the age of reservoirs: My presentation Thursday this week at the Oklahoma Clean Lakes & Watersheds meeting in Stillwater. 2nd field trip following Nuttall in Fort Smith and through the Poteau River valley…

San Bois

From Barry Bruton, via Facebook: Steve, here’s a question that I always wondered about: The San Bois mountains (in eastern OK), which means literally ‘without trees’, are described by Nuttall and others as being virtually treeless. These ranges are now…

Maple-leaf Oak

Maple-leaf oak planted on the campus of Hendrix College, in honor of Tom Clark. Photo: Ples Spradley

This is the maple-leaf oak, a rare tree known definitively from only a few locations including the Arkansas side of Sugarloaf Mountain. The common name is descriptive–it is an oak with a leaf resembling a maple. The photos are from…

The Little Rock & Maumelle

Ascending the Arkansas River from Arkansas Post on the Mississippi, Thomas Nuttall arrived in the vicinity of present-day Little Rock, Arkansas on March 20, 1819. “The fascade or cliffs, in which it terminates on the bank of the river, is…

Fort Smith National Historic Site

Fort Smith National Historic Site

The original Fort Smith, established at Belle Point, at the confluence of the Poteau River with the Arkansas River, was less than two years old when Nuttall arrived there on April 24, 1819. We will begin our field trip at…

Thomas Nuttall Bicentennial

Cover Image of Nuttall's Journal

We are only two years away from the 200th anniversary of the trip the English botanist and naturalist Thomas Nuttall took up the Arkansas River in 1819, the first scientifically trained observer to visit these areas. Nuttall kept a journal…