110 Rhodora [JUNE 
Dr. Warnstorff in Neu-Ruppin, Germany. The value of the material was 
immediately recognized, and Warnstorff particularly states that his 
revision of. the North American Sphagna was due principally to Mr. 
Faxon's sending him a systematic collection — about five hundred 
numbered specimens — of the Sphagna of Massachusetts and New 
Hampshire. 
In 139o the Botanical Gazette published Warnstorff's contributions 
to the knowledge of North American Sphagna, translated from the 
German by Edwin Faxon. In 1893 a prospectus of an intended dis- 
tribution of sets of North American Sphagna was issued by Professor 
D. C. Eaton and Mr. Faxon. It was estimated that a full series might 
call for 130 different forms, but the sets as issued in 1896 comprised 
172 numbers of very beautiful and carefully selected specimens, mak- 
ing an invaluable collection for the student of North American botany. 
I well remember one day in the Alpine Garden of Mt. Washington 
when we had loaded ourselves with mosses and other plants, chiefly from 
the ice-cold brooks of that mountain plateau, a dreary fog settled down 
over the landscape, and we hastened to reach the carriage road before 
the rainy night set in. After an hour's climb over the rocks, we were 
in the road, and rested a bit before starting for the summit in the now 
increasing rain. Mr. Williams and.I insisted on sharing Mr. Faxon's 
load, and were astonished beyond measure at the weight of wet sphag- 
num he was carrying (these loads were usually from thirty to forty 
pounds), and at the fact that he had been accustomed to just such 
burdens for many years in his botanical collecting. And then those 
pleasant evenings at the Summit House, Mr. Faxon always busy in 
laying out little bunches of wet sphagnum in his botanical papers, Mr. 
Williams and I constantly running into his room with a plant or a moss 
for question or identification, and he citing localities or incidents of 
his early mountain trips, when he with Mr. Pringle collected for the 
first time all the mountain rarities. 
It is probable that no botanist had a better field knowiedge of New 
England plants in certain areas than Mr. Faxon, in the years from 
1872 to 1898. ‘These areas were eastern Massachusetts ; Mt. Desert, 
Maine; the White Mountains, New Hampshire; Smugglers’ Notch, 
Willoughby, and the Lake Champlain shore in Vermont. He was con- 
stantly sending specimens from these districts to botanists all over the 
world, and was always glad to go at a moment's notice to any of these 
points for a particular plant for any applicant, even if personally un- 
