"The firs Europeans to penetrate America's interior from the east weren't looking for lands to settle or passages to the west. They were looking for plants they could sell, and they found wondrous new species by the score--the azalea, aster, camellia, catalpa, euphorbia, hydrangea, rhododendron, rudbeckia, Virginia creeper, and wild cherry....Fortunes could be made from finding new plants and getting them safely back to the nurseries of European propagation." (265)

(Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.)