Percy Train papers

Percy Train (1876-1942) was a botanist and collector of Nevada plants and fossils. He was born in Helena, Montana and attended the (Butte) Montana School of Mines. After a period of time in business as a mining engineer, he turned to experimental botany and fossil collecting in southern Nevada. From 1926 to 1932 he gained a reputation as an expert fossil hunter and worked on contract for colleges and museums. In 1932, with his wife Agnes Hume Scott, he excavated Miocene fossil leaves in Oregon for Dr. Chester A. Arnold of the University of Michigan. In 1935 Mr. Train collected desert plants in Death Valley for William R. Maxon of the Smithsonian Institution. Two years later the Trains began a project to study medicinal uses of plants among the aboriginal cultures of Nevada, including Shoshone, Paiute, Washoe, and Moapa Paiute cultures. They conducted ethnobotanical fieldwork from 1937 to 1941 collecting specimens and researching the native uses of plants. From this “Indian Medicine Project” Mr. Train published Medicinal Uses of Plants by Indian Tribes of Nevada (1941) with James R. Henrichs, and W. Andrew Archer, issued by the USDA Bureau of Plant Industry in conjunction with the Work Projects Administration and the University of Nevada.