70 



a family party. Dr. Gray did a little botanizing, but said that a 

 land that had been cultivated 5,000 years was a poor land to 

 botanize in. However, when the desert was within reach, as it 



I 



occasionally was, and they landed for a walk, he made some 

 specimens and he would say that the desert had more plants in 

 half an hour, than cultivated Egypt in a week. They ascended 

 the river as far as Wady-Halfa, in Nubia, where the cataracts 

 stop navigation. They returned home to America in November, 

 1869. Again, early in September, 1880, Dr. and Mrs. Gray went 

 to Europe, and this time Dr. Gray saw the Herbarium at Madrid 

 and worked for some time in Paris, and for a long time at Kew, 

 the British Museum, etc. Plants were also sent to him from 

 German herbaria and the Jardin des Plantes, etc., to assist his 

 studies at Kew. He worked also in some of the Italian herbaria. 

 They sailed for home by the end of October, 188 1. 



The last trip to Europe was taken in April, 1887. This 

 journey was mostly a holiday one, though Dr. Gray did some 

 work at Kew, besides going over the Lamarck herbarium at the 

 Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Three universities honored them- 

 selves by conferring degrees upon Dr. Gray at this time. When 

 the University of Cambridge bestowed the degree of Doctor of 

 Science, Dr. Sandys closed his address, which was written in 

 Latin, in the following words, '*This man who has so long 

 adorned his fair science by his labors and his life, even unto a 

 hoary age, 'bearing,' as the poet says, * the white blossoms of a 

 blameless life/ him, I say, we gladly crown, at least with these 

 flowerets of praise, with this corolla of honor (His saltern laudis 

 flosculis, hac saltern honoris corolla, libenter coronamus.) For 

 many, many years may Asa Gray, the venerable priest of Flora 

 (Florae sacerdos venerabilis), render more illustrious this academic 

 crown ! " The University of Edinburgh conferred the degree of 

 LL.D., and the University of Oxford that of D.C.L. He was 

 also at this time elected an honorary member of the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society of Manchester, England. 



There was scarcely a society of note, either in this country 

 or in Europe, that did not claim Dr. Gray as an active, foreign, 

 honorary or corresponding member. His name is connected with 

 seventy different societies, from many of which he received dis- 



