This year I'm continuing my series on plant hunters who collected botanical specimens in the Americas. This time I'm reporting on two women botanists who collected specimens on the Colorado River in the 1930s - Dr. Elzada Clover (1897-1980) and Dr. Lois Jotter Clover (1914-2013). I don't recall how I heard about them (it might have been through a book club referral from my mom, or through my own research into plant hunters). Regardless, I love desert plants and a good adventure, so was hooked and wanted to know more.
Elzada Clover was born in 1897 in Auburn, Nebraska to a large farm family. They moved to Texas in 1925, where Elzada developed a keen interest in cacti. Clover attended Nebraska State Teachers College in 1930 and and later University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, earning her M.S. (1932) and PhD. (1935) degrees. Her doctoral thesis focused on cacti of the lower Rio Grande Valley. She taught botany at University of Michigan and was an assistant curator of their botanical gardens. She made numerous expeditions in the Southwest searching for native plant species.
Lois Jotter (later Cutter) was born in 1914 in Weaverville, California, and later the family moved to Michigan. Lois was interested in science from an early age, and encouraged to pursue science by her mother and her father who taught forestry at the University of Michigan. Lois graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in botany and biology, and continued her studies in botany, earning a doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1943.
In the late 1930's, Clover started planning a research trip down the Colorado River to catalog its plants. She sought funding and worked with boatman Norman Nevills who worked out of Mexican Hat, Utah. At the time the Colorado River was untamed and boating the Grand Canyon was very rare. Clover and Nevills developed their team, which included Jotter and several graduate students and boatmen. Nevills and his father built a fleet of custom river boats - the Wen, the Botany, and the Mexican Hat. The Clover and Nevills 1938 expedition traveled from Green River, Utah, through the Cataract and Grand Canyons, all the way to Lake Mead. The rigorous trip took 43 days, covered 600 miles, and was filled with peril. Along the way, Clover and Jotter gathered plant specimens and described the plant zones found along the river (influenced perhaps by Alexander von Humboldt's work on climate zones at different altitudes - see Plant Hunters: Alexander von Humboldt). Their report is an important record of native species, as later the Glen Canyon Dam was built along the river.
To learn more about the expedition down the Colorado river, I read Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, by Melissa L. Sevigny (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2023). The book provides an account of the trip down the river, both the perilous physical adventure and the often-fraught interpersonal adventure.
It was fascinating to experience the expedition vicariously, made at a time that the Colorado River and Grand Canyon were untamed by humans and very unpredictable. I was interested to learn about the challenges of collecting plants and keeping them dry, and their realization that indigenous people cultivated some non-native plants along the river. It was also interesting to read some of Clover and Jotter's resulting botanical publications and see how their research helped later botanists. I recommend this book for anyone interested in botanical history in the Americas, adventure, and desert plants.
Learn More
- Writing Westward Podcast Ep. 053 - Melissa L Sevigny
Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Grand Canyon
Interviewer: Prof. Brenden W. Rensink
https://youtu.be/pE6g_MHtYxo
- Lois Jotter Cutter - long form interview with Lois Jotter Cutter (who ran the river with Norm Nevills and Elzada Clover in 1938, becoming the first women to do so) shot in 1994 in the Grand Canyon on the Stanton Photo-match trip (eyewitness testimony from people who saw the river before Glen Canyon Dam). Camera, Jeff Robertson. Sound, Lew Steiger.
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