122 Rhodora [Mav 
whom he came in contact. His death, January 27, 1903, without 
suffering and with no previous impairment of his abilities, was what 
he would have chosen for himself, could he have made the choice. 
Mrs. Dame and four daughters survive him. 
Every boy has the collecting spirit, at one time or another, and in 
Mr. Dame's case it first took the form of insect collecting ; but even 
in his school days at Lowell he did some collecting of plants, and 
botany then soon superseded entomology. Even in his roughest 
campaigning in the south, he would notice the trees and flowers, and 
mention them in his letters home. At Lexington he began to collect 
with a definite intention of becoming familiar with the plants of the 
region: then the Nantucket flora, with its many peculiar forms in a 
limited area, especially attracted him, and thereafter botany was his 
one especial interest, outside of his family and his professional rela-- 
tions. 
I first met him at a meeting of the Middlesex Field Club, formed 
for promoting interest in the botany of the county; we were together 
in many field excursions, and in 1882 we undertook the preparation 
of a county flora, which was published in 1888 under the auspices of 
the Middlesex Institute, the successor of the Field Club. Practically 
all our spare time for these six years was devoted to this work, and 
I learned to appreciate thoroughly his many noble and lovable char- 
acteristics. Intellectually, thoroughness was perhaps his strongest 
feature; no amount of time or work was too much to give to get the 
facts; nothing was allowed to go into the “copy” until every possi- 
ble question had been answered. Naturally, we had from various 
quarters lists of species that would be very interesting additions to 
our local flora, but unless good evidence could be brought forward 
for them, he was inexorable, and they remained in the file known 
to us as the “rogues’ gallery.” Occasionally some new evidence 
would transfer a plant to the accepted list, but the number of the 
incorrigible finally bore quite a large proportion to the number 
included in the printed work. During the preparation of this work 
he took especial charge of the trees, and from that time, while not 
losing his interest in general botany, he made the trees a specialty. 
I was not associated with him in his later publications, but I know 
that the same care, patience and judgment were used in the folio 
volume, Typical Elms and other Trees of Massachusetts, and in the 
Handbook of the Trees of New England, both of which he prepared 
