HistoryLink Essay: David Douglas arrives at Fort Vancouver ... on April 20, 1825.

It amazes me to what lengths people have gone to find new plants and get them back to their homelands. David Douglas, for whom the Douglas fir is named, is a good example. The man got a lot of travel in, under sometimes very bad and often dangerous conditions, before he died at age 34 in Hawaii.

The title linked article begins with something of an overview before it gets down to some of the more interesting troubles and triumphs:

On April 20, 1825, David Douglas (1799-1834) arrives at Fort Vancouver, the Hudson's Bay Company's new Columbia River headquarters, in the company of chief factor Dr. John McLoughlin (1784-1857). The young Scotsman is a collector for England's Horticultural Society, dispatched to the Northwest Coast to bring back specimens and seeds of the marvelous and new (to Europeans) plants of the region, for introduction into British gardens and forests. For the next two years, Douglas will use Fort Vancouver as a base for botanical explorations through much of present-day Washington and Oregon, where he will collect thousands of specimens of plants ranging from tiny, rare mosses and herbs to the giant and abundant tree that now bears his name, the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menzeisii, not actually a fir, but a member of a Pacific Rim genus)...