Career

Collecting localities

Collections

Literature

Biographical data

 

Morrow, James

 

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 1: Cyclopaedia of collectors)

 

Born: 1820, Palmetto State, S. Carolina, U.S.A. Died: 1865, Willington, S. Carolina, U.S.A.

 

career:

Was educated at the University of Georgia, at Athens (B.A. 1843); studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (M.D. 1846), from 1848-49 he pursued graduate studies in the Medical College of the State of South Carolina; he seems to have practised at Charleston. He accompanied Perry’s Expedition to Japan (see below) as Agriculturist; after coming home to South Carolina he probably returned to a practice at Charleston; at the end of 1860 appointed Assistant Surgeon in the fort on Morris Island, in 1861 assigned under the Confederate Army to James Island; in June 1865 to Willington.

He was commemorated in Lonicera (Xylosteum) morrowi A.Gray, and in Carex morrowi Boott.

 

Collecting localities:

Perry’s Expedition to Japan, 1852-55.1 Commodore Perry departed from Norfolk, Virginia, on Nov. 24, 1852, o/b the U.S.S. ‘Mississippi’, and sailed via Madeira, St Helena, Cape Town, Mauritius, Point de Galle, and Singapore, to Hongkong. Dr Morrow was not appointed until after the Commodore had sailed; he was assigned to the sloop-of-war ‘Vandalia’,2 which left Delaware Bay (March 6, 1853) and sailed via Rio de Janeiro, and the Cape of Good Hope; touching at W. Java: anchoring in Mew Bay (= Meeuwenbaai, near the SW. extremity) (June 19-27), some excursions on shore (20, 21, 23), crossing to Mew Island (? 21), and sailing (28) past Anger-Point (= Anjer); Singapore (July 3-11), making several trips; to Macao (establishing headquarters there, with Perry); Canton, Whampoa, Honan, Great Lew-Chew (= Okinawa), Japan, and back to China; homeward bound aboard the naval storeship ‘Lexington’ via W. Java: Anger Point (= Anjer) (Nov. 4-6, 1854); down the Straits of Sunda; Cape of Good Hope, St Helena; Brooklyn Navy Yard (Febr. 16, 1855).

 

collections:

He brought home dried and living plants (including some from Java), and collected seeds of crop plants. The dried collections were partly sent to Asa Gray of Harvard University;3 the specimens had to be returned to the U.S. Patent Office (= U.S. Nat. Herb. Wash. [US]) after the classification. The Japanese plants were collected with S. Wells Williams, of the American Mission at Macao.

 

literature:

(1) M.C. Perry: ‘Narrative of the expedition of an American squadron to the China Seas and Japan’ (Washington 1856, vol. 2).

(2) A.B. Cole: ‘A scientist with Perry in Japan. The journal of Dr James Morrow’ (Chapel Hill 1947, w. ill.).

(3) A. Gray: ‘Account of the botanical specimens. List of dried plants collected in Japan, by S. Wells Williams, Esq., and Dr. James Morrow’ (in ‘Narrative etc.’, Washington 1856, vol. 2, p. 303-332). W.S. Sullivant reported on the mosses, W.H. Harvey on the Algae, Dr Boott on the Carices, D.C. Eaton on the ferns.

 

biographical data:

A.B. Cole, A scientist with Perry in Japan, 1947, Introduction p. i-xxvi + portr., and App. xiv-xx, p. 253-268.