24<> THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



JOSIAH GREGG. 



Practically nothing is known of the early life of Josiah 

 Gregg.* A broken down constitution first made him a 

 traveler on the prairies, which he afterwards crossed several 

 times as a trader in the employ of Mr. Thomas G. Rockhill, 

 a Philadelphia merchant, He contributed a series of letters 

 on the history and condition of the Santa Fe trade to the 

 Galveston Advertiser (1841 and 1842), and the Arkansas 

 Intelligencer; "The Commerce of the Prairies," a journal 

 of a Santa Fe trader during eight journeys across the great 

 western prairies, and a residence of nearly nine years in 

 New Mexico, was written in 1844. During a residence in 

 New Mexico, Gregg devoted some attention to botany and 

 discovered several new plants. Greggia, a genus of cruci- 

 ferous herbs of western Texas and northern Mexico, was 

 dedicated to him by Asa Gray, as also Fraxinus (Jrcgijii. 

 In 1840 Gregg acted as guide to General Wool's division to 

 Chihuahua, and later he went to Saltillo with General 

 Butler. He is supposed to have died in California, in ls"u. 



GAVIN WATSON. 



( iavin Watson, M. D., was a Scotchman and active 

 practitioner in the upper part of the City of Philadelphia. 

 He devoted himself actively to the collecting of plants 

 in surround ing country. He was held with disfavor by 

 contemporary local botanists, bcrau.se he, with great dis- 

 regard to the botanists' code of honor, destroyed the 

 localities of several rare plants by digging them up for 



* SARGENT. Silva of North America , VI : :>3. 

 J'i'ii-i i <liiti/x American Acadfini/, XII : 63 (18?i'>!. 

 <;<ir<h a nnil J-'orest, VII : ]L'. 



