THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 273 



country district school, where he became interested in botany 

 through an older half brother, Franklin Commons, who. 

 while a student at the Academy at Unionville, in 1839, had 

 purchased a copy of Darlington's " Flora Cestrica," and also 

 had a tin collecting box made. Thus equipped, the brothers 

 made excursions to collect botanical and mineralogical 

 specimens, until at the time of his brother's decease in 

 1842, they had acquired a collection of about five hundred 

 botanical specimens. Albert's first botanical trip in Dela- 

 ware was in 1842, when, soon after the removal to the farm, 

 his brother took him along on one of his excursions around 

 the neighborhood. Ever since that he has taken an interest 

 in botanical pursuits, and has now a larger collection of 

 the plants of Delaware, perhaps, than any other in the state. 

 Having nearly three thousand species listed of mosses, 

 over sixty species; hepatics, forty species; lichens, 160 

 species, and of fungi, 1300 species. 



JOHN HICHAEL flAISCH. 



John Michael Maisch * was born in Germany, at 

 Hanau-on-the-Main, January 30, 1831, his father being 

 Conrad Maisch, a merchant of moderate means in that 

 town. He attended, at first, a private school, then the city 

 free school, and later the middle public school. 



Here he soon attracted the attention of his teacher. 

 Pastor Worishoffer, and by him he was employed to correct 

 the lessons of the lower class, and in return received 

 instructions in the rudiments of French. At the age of 

 twelve and a half years he left this school, and on the 

 advice of his parents he determined to learn the jewelry 



* American Journal of Pharmacy, January, 189-4, LXVI : 1. 



