207 



Royal Horticultural Society of London. He was a life member 

 of the American Pomological Society, and presided over its At- 

 lanta meeting. He was also President of the New Jersey Hor- 

 ticultural Society, a corresponding member of the Philadelphia 



t 



Academy of Sciences, and an active member of the New York 



J 



Academy of Sciences. From the University Medical College of 

 New York he received the honorary title of Doctor of Medicine. 

 Two genera of plants have been dedicated to this distinguished 

 man. On page 209 of the first volume of Bentliam & Hooker 

 we find accepted the genus Thurbcria, of Asa Gray, in the Me- 



'J 



nioirs of the Ainctican Academy, v. 308. But on page 982 of 



1 



tlie same volume the authors announce their opinion that this 



I 



recognition was erroneous, as the genus Thurbcria of Gray is not 

 to be separated from Gossypium. Mr. Bentham therefore, in 

 the Journal of the Linnceaii Society, xix, 58, dedicates to him a 



1 



genus comprising two species of grasses of Texas and Arkansas, 

 and this genus is accredited in the third volume, page I,ii8, of 

 the Genera Plantartan. We have, therefore, the curious circum- 

 stance of having the same name applied to two different genera 



I 



in different volumes of the same work. This reference is thus 

 given in detail because of an erroneous idea which has been 



' 



created by the statement in Garden and Forest^ April 9, page 

 ^71)^ where Gray's genus Thurbcria is referred to as though it 

 were the accepted one. 



It was probably owing to the indefatigable exertions and ac- 

 companying exposures of his Mexican service that Dr. Thurber 

 contracted a rheumatism to which he was ever after a martyr. 

 It was painful to witness his frequent attacks, during which he 

 remained steadily at his desk, performing his duties day and 

 night in the midst of the acutest torture. But during the last 

 few years various complications developed which almost inca- 

 pacitated him for any severe labor, and to these he succumbed 

 on the night of Wednesday, April 2, leaving a brother and three 

 sisters, together with a host of professional and personal friends, 

 to mourn his loss. He was buried in the Swan Point Cemetery, 

 founded, strangely enough, by the same Thomas C. Hartshorn 

 who had instructed him when a boy, and overlooking the beauti- 



