1911] Brainerd,— Cyrus Guernsey Pringle | 229 
slope. He was charged with three commissions: (1) as agent for 
the United States Census Department, to explore the forests of that 
region and to collect data for the final report; (2) as botanical collector 
for the American Museum of Natural History, to secure wood speci- 
mens to complete the famous Jesup Collection; (3) to make general 
collections under the direction of Dr. Asa Gray for a better knowledge 
of the flora of the southwestern United States. He was permitted to 
secure duplicate specimens when practicable, and their sale helped 
to defray the expenses of the trip. "The printed list of plants, offered 
for general distribution on his return in 1881, contained about 430 
species, all but 62 from Arizona. 
This general work was continued for four years, the collection for 
1882 being still larger and consisting mostly of the plants of Cali- 
fornia. 'The summer of that year he made a long and interesting 
journey with mules into the mountains of Lower California to secure 
a specimen of the trunk of Pinus Parryana, a trip on which Dr. Parry 
was his guide and companion. In 1884 he again for a short distance 
crossed the Mexican borders into Sonora, and his Arizona sets of 683 
species for that year have an aspect decidedly Mexican. 
During all these years Dr. Gray was Mr. Pringle's ardent friend 
and helper. He styled him “the prince of collectors." He appre- 
ciated also his keenness of observation, in the detection of hybrids in 
Quercus and Dentaria, in discovering leaf-propagation in the Lake 
Cress (Radicula aquatica), in noting the presence of cleistogamous 
flowers in Dalibarda repens, the first known instance in Rosaceae, and 
in the discovery that there were two sorts of butternut trees, the one 
sort having staminate flowers two weeks earlier than pistillate, the 
other sort having pistillate flowers two weeks earlier than staminate, 
both sorts thus incapable of self-fertilization, but well adapted for 
reciprocal fertilization. Dr. Gray aided Mr. Pringle materially in 
securing subscriptions for his sets from European herbaria, and in 
advancing money for needful expenses. Mrs. Gray also loaned him 
sums amounting to about a thousand dollars, which after Dr. Gray’s 
death she preferred to have him retain and use in the further prosecu- 
tion of the work to which her husband had been so long devoted. 
Near the close of her life she asked Mr. Pringle to call, and destroyed 
in his presence the notes that he had given her. 
Dr. Gray at first kept Mr. Pringle collecting in the arid regions 
north of Mexico, as the latter country was not included in his Synopti- 
