Plant explorer of the American West; a field naturalist who gathered more than 100,000 specimens of plants and thousands of archaeological, ethnological and zoological specimens. During a lifetime of exploration he visited Paraguay, Mexico, southwestern United States, and was the first naturalist to collect in Guadalupe Island off Baja, California.

This list is entitled “Cat. of Palmer's plants of Arizona, 1877” and carries some hundred entries bearing scattered numbers from 9 to 557. An appended legend shows seven collecting localities, A-G, and each species clearly assigned. During his 1877 trip, Palmer is recorded as having collected 532 species, only 125 of which were from Arizona. The numbers were supplied by C. C. Parry after the set of plants was sent to Davenport. Since five or six sets were later distributed, this catalog, doubtfully written by Palmer, may have been a sales list of the plants.