296 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1895. 



herbarium of the Academy. In 1879 he made another journey 

 to North Carolina with Dr. Gray to see where Shortia grew. One 

 may see from the scrupulous care with which every fact of import- 

 ance is noted on the labels attached to the plants collected on 

 these journeys how well trained to conscientious accuracy his 

 mind had been. His work for the day would be finished and 

 cleared up as if he never expected to resume it again ; and when 

 he undertook a task his mind dwelt on it until the end had been 

 reached. Happening, while penning these lines, to open a volume 

 on my table treating of the Celastracese, I find a letter between 

 the pages which well illustrates this finished character. We had 

 together been working up an unnamed collection from Tabasco in 

 Mexico. Leaving in the afternoon, I expected to be again in the 

 herbarium the next or at most the day after. But he could not 

 wait, and the lettertcame the next morning: "Phila., March 3rd, 

 1893. My Dear Meehan : I enclose you two or three softened 

 flowers of our last adversarium for you to examine. As /see them, 

 they have five rounded imbricate sepals, five strongly reflexed petals, 

 five stamens alternate tvith the petals, filaments conical, no style, but 

 stigma sessile on the ovary. The ovary is too small for my poor 

 eyes to dissect. 



Try every way I can, I am driven back to Celastrinse, and I 

 have a suspicion that our plant may be Zinowieivia integerrima 

 Turcz. B. & H. I, 364. B. & H. description says "stylus brevis," 

 but the original description says "stigma sessile on the ovary." 

 B, & H. say "folia opposita, " but if I recollect right, the origi- 

 nal description says "leaves alternate." But there are some diffi- 

 culties about this view. Yours, J. H. R. " 



On some other occasion, when we would feel the "nut too hard 

 to crack,' ' I would hardly be home before there would be a 

 brief note, "Eureka!" and the name following as he had deter- 

 mined it. It must be to this habit of beginning and finishing at 

 once if possible, that we must ascribe the wonderful amount of 

 work accomplished. He commenced the work of putting the herba- 

 rium in order in 1870. In addition to the preparation for fastening 

 down the specimens and the accompanying label, on which work he 

 was engaged at the time of his death, he had previously arranged 

 in genus-covers the whole collection, writing on each the genus 

 and the numbers to correspond with Bentham and Hooker's work, 



