Botany of Nations: Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery is a groundbreaking exhibition that reexamines the 1804 Corps of Discovery through Indigenous perspectives. Co-curated with ethnobotanist and author Enrique Salmón, PhD, and developed with contributions from Indigenous cultural historians, the exhibition presents a culturally layered view of the plants of North America. Drawing on the Academy’s historic Lewis and Clark Herbarium—home to some of the oldest plant specimens collected during the expedition—Botany of Nations reveals how Native Nations shaped America’s ecological knowledge long before Western science claimed these “discoveries.” By re-storying the expedition through Indigenous voices and perspectives, the exhibition illuminates how plants function as portals to storytelling, cultural memory, and enduring relationships between people and place.

Through historic journals, maps, herbarium sheets, and scientific instruments, alongside cultural artifacts, film, interactive media, and sensory experiences, visitors encounter the landscapes and plant traditions that informed the journey across more than 50 sovereign nations. The exhibition highlights culturally significant plants, including tobacco and chokecherry, while sharing the stewardship practices Indigenous communities have sustained for generations. A newly produced film by Cass Gardiner explores how traditional land practices and food systems offer powerful insights for addressing biodiversity loss and climate change today. The exhibition extends outdoors, in partnership with the Garden Club of Philadelphia, through a new native plant garden on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where visitors can encounter plants native to the eastern United States and reflect on how Indigenous relationships with plants continue to guide more resilient futures.

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