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in the forty-first year of his age. His collections of Southern 
plants are now in the Herbarium of the Acd. Nat. Sci., of Phila., 
- Where they are guarded with care and justly prized. 
Muhlenberg, in Nuttall’s “Genera Plantarum,” did honog to 
one of the most distinguished of our early botanists by naming for 
Stephen Elliott, a shrub of the Heath family, which grows in the 
dry, rich soils of Southern Georgia, El/iottia racemosa. Elliott 
was born at Beaufort, S. C., in 1771. He was educated at Yale, 
and while a senior in college he was spoken of as being possessed 
of more science and general information than was often found in 
one of his age and standing. He graduated with one of the high- 
est honors, and returning home applied himself to agricultural 
pursuits. The people of his State, recognizing his marked ability, 
elected him first to the State Legislature, and then to the Senate. 
While a member of the latter body he took a leading part in all 
important business, and was the originator of the “free school 
system” of South Carolina, and the Bank Bill creating the “« Bank 
of the State.” 
He was for a time President of the South Carolina College and 
later Professor of Botany and Natural History in the Charleston 
Medical College. He was the first, and during his lifetime the 
only President of the Philosophical Society of Charleston. The ver- 
Satility and vigor of Mr. Elliott's mind may be seen in the variety 
of attainments in which he excelled. Beginning his career as a 
legislator, in which capacity he served for many years, he took 
Prominent and leading parts in many of the important measures 
of his day. And it was while engaged in public and in engrossing 
financial business that he found time for literary and scientific 
Pursuits, which alone would have placed him in the foremost rank 
_ among men of letters. 
Botanists remember and esteem Elliott for his grand work 
entitled a «Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia,” 
Published in two volumes in 1823 and 1824. The technical de- 
Scriptions of the species enumerated are given in both Latin and 
English, and these in each case are followed by a more extended 
account in English in which are given the habitat, time of flower- 
'ng, local names and often the reputed medicinal properties and 
other points of historical interest. The whole work, embracing © 
