The JLT Natural History Society book club will meet at 3:30 pm on Monday, June 23 to discuss The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest, by Jack Nisbet.

From 1823 to 1834, Scottish plant collector and naturalist David Douglas explored what is now Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, and the impact he had continues to be enormous today.

The Collector tracks Douglas’s fascinating history, from his humble birth in Scotland in 1799 to his botanical training under the famed William Jackson Hooker, and details his adventures in North America discovering exotic new plants for the English and European market.

The book takes readers along on Douglas’s journeys into a literal brave new world of then-obscure realms from Puget Sound to the Sandwich Islands. In telling Douglas’s story, Spokane-based naturalist Jack Nisbet evokes a lost world of early exploration, pristine nature, ambition, and cultural and class conflict with surprisingly modern resonances.

To RSVP, and for locations and directions, please contact Pat at jltnatural@saveland.org