BULLETIN 





<,- 



OF THE 



TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 



Vol. XV.J New York, March 2, 1888. . [No. 3 



Asa Gray, 



By Walter Deane 



With Portrait. 



Asa Gray died in Cambridge, Mass., on the 30th of January, 

 1888. The world has lost a most distinguished botanist, and all, 

 who knew him, a cherished friend. No words are needed to 

 sound his praises, and he himself would not have desired it 



His early life was spent in the State of New York, where his 

 love for botany was first developed. Born in Paris, Oneida Co., 

 ^- Y., one of his earliest occupations was to feed the bark-mill and 

 drive the horse at his father's tannery. He attended the CUnton 

 Crammar School and from there went to Fairfield Academy, enter- 

 ing later the Medical College of the Western District o{ Fairfield ; 

 and, though he graduated with the degree of M.D. in 183 1, yet he 

 never practiced medicine. This was an important period of his 

 life, for it was in the winter of 1 827-8 that his interest in botany 

 was awakened by reading an article on the subject in Brewster's 

 Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. The next spring he eagerly watched 

 for the first flower and, with the aid of Eaton's Manual, arranged 

 on the old Linnaean System, he found it to be the little Claytonia 

 Virginica or Spring Beauty.t During this time, he studied with 

 Dr. Priest in his native town and was a pupil of Dr. John F. 

 Trowbridge, of Bridgewater. The correspondence which he 

 carried on with Dr. Lewis C. Beck, an eminent botanist, in regard 

 to the botanical specimens which he had been collecting and 

 studying, led to his going to New York and making the acquain- 



^ ^ i^ — ^ 



*In writing this article, I have consulted the various notices ofDr. Gray that have 



l^en written hitherto, and I would especially acknowledge the kindness of Mrs. Gray 



^i giving me a sketch of Dr. Gray's journeys in Europe and America. 



tThis plant proved to be Claytonia Caroliniana, Mx., a species not recognized at 

 the time. 



