230 Rhodora [NOVEMBER 
cal Flora of North America. But from the high peaks along its 
northern border the great collector had often gazed with wondering 
eyes upon the vast, largely unexplored region to the south. In an 
unfinished paper entitled, “On Mexican Trails,” he wrote “It was 
from the mountains of Southern Arizona, the Santa Rita and other 
mountains, in the early months of 1881, that I first beheld Mexican 
territory, the rugged heights of Northern Sonora receding crest upon 
crest in paler and paler blue beneath the staring southern sky,— a 
land of mystery and of fear." At last in 1885 Dr. Gray was content 
with Mr. Pringle’s work in the southwestern United States, and 
arranged for him to enter upon the botanical Conquest of Mexico — 
a labor to which the remaining twenty-six years of his life were zeal- 
ously devoted. By special arrangement he was made botanical 
collector for the Gray Herbarium, and served in that capacity not 
only till the death of Dr. Gray in 1888, but till the death of Dr. 
Watson in 1892. Under the administration of Dr. Robinson, in 
1893 he was by act of the Corporation appointed Collector on the 
botanical staff of Harvard University, and held that office till the day 
of his death. 
Of the great work that he accomplished for the botany of Mexico 
we may not here speak in detail. He was held in the highest esteem 
by the scientific and civil authorities of that nation, and mounted 
sets of his collections were from year to year purchased by the govern- 
ment. Duplicates have gone into all the great herbaria of the world, 
and his name will ever be illustrious in the history of Mexican Botany. 
From the beginning of his field work in botany, Mr. Pringle took 
great pride in his private herbarium. Into this he always put any 
plant of his own collecting that was especially choice or rare; and 
from the first, he improved opportunities to obtain from other col- 
lectors, by purchase or exchange, specimens of unrepresented species. 
In 1902 his herbarium contained about 50,000 specimens, filling several 
rooms in the old brick farm-house — his birthplace — in East Char- 
lotte. That year it was removed to commodious fire-proof quarters 
in the Williams Science Hall at Burlington. Arrangements were 
made by which it became the property of the University of Vermont, 
but to be under his charge and control during the remainder of his life. 
In the nine years that have since passed, Mr. Pringle has labored 
with increasing zeal for the growth of the herbarium, securing large 
collections of plants from all parts of the world. During the last 
