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In 1835 Curtis was ordained to the ministry of the Episcopal 
Church and immediately entered upon mission work in Western 
North Carolina. He spent a year in this work, and while thus en- 
gaged he took advantage of his journeying in the solitary woods 
to pursue his botanical researches. He traveled mostly in a sulky 
which was so arranged that his collecting portfolios could be 
placed under the cushion of the seat. As he came across speci- 
mens he would gather them, put them into the portfolios, and so 
by the end of his journey he had secured a goodly number of 
ready pressed plants for future study or for mounting in his her- 
barium. In 1849 he again visited the mountain region, and in 
1841 it was said of him by Dr. Gray that “no living botanist was 
so well acquainted with the vegetation of the Sotithern Alleghany 
mountains, or has explored those of North Carolina more exten- 
sively.” 
Dr. Curtis’ method as a student was that of a broad-minded 
scientist ; just to name a flower and preserve it was to him but the 
beginning of his work. His earliest records show that he studied 
the relations of plant life to geologic and climatic surroundings. 
The study of botanical geography was begun with his career as 4 
botanist and continued throughout, extending over 38 years. The 
account he gives us in his “ Woody Plants” is to-day the best 
guide to the natural climatological divisions of the State which 
has ever been published. He also directed his attention to the 
numerous economic questions which met him in his intimate ac- 
quaintance with the treasures of the field and forest. It was this 
feature of his labors alone which brought him an audience in his © 
adopted State. His “ Woody Plants,” published as a part of the 
State Geological and Natural History Survey in 1860, at once be- 
came a popular manual for the farmer and the woodsman, and for 
the amateur botanist a key to the more conspicuous trees and 
shrubs useful for their fruit or timber or as ornaments. The pre 
face of this little work is an introduction to the geographical dis- 
tribution of plants in the State and shows what a thorough ac : 
quaintance its author had with the broad subject. 
Although Dr. Curtis is known as a man who was intimately 
acquainted with the flowering plants of the South, it is through a 
his great knowledge of cryptogams, especially of fungi, that he 
