ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.] BIOGRAPHY 9 



time did he show greater control of his mental balance and wisdom in meeting a particular 

 situation than in the last weeks of his life, when, knowing as a physician that his end was certainly 

 approaching, with calmness and deliberation he arranged his various and very considerable 

 affairs and consulted with those who were to carry on his work and those for whom he desired to 

 provide. During the bast several years of his life, in fact, he had devoted himself to preparing 

 for this end, which came peacefully to him, still in possession of his mental faculties. A word as 

 to Farlow's health may not be amiss in this account. It may be said that, although never 

 robust in the commonly accepted sense of the term, and although subject through much of his 

 life to distressing and nerve-racking headaches, he lost little time from his work through illness 

 and spent more than the ordinary working hours of the day in his pursuits. In later years 

 he was less subject to these interruptions of his work and was amazingly cheerful as well 

 as industrious. 



As a field naturalist, Farlow was keen and untiring, although few of his later students had 

 the opportunity of observing him in this capacity. As to his earlier trips and methods I know 

 little except from casual remarks. He was wont, at times, to compare the condition of the 

 neighborhood of the time with what it was earlier, when, judging from his reminiscences over 

 some specimens, he lamented the intrusion of asphalt pavements and garbage heaps in select 

 localities and called to mind that Rev. Prof. A. P. Peabody, then an elderly man and college 

 pastor, could remember back to the time when Arethusa bulbosa grew in one corner of the college 

 yard. Even in my own day (1887-1891) at Cambridge there remained some traces of good 

 collecting places, such as " Norton's Woods," a small patch of woodland to the north of the 

 museum, " Glaciahs," near Fresh Pond, etc., but the tracks of progress were already blotting 

 them out, although it was still possible to obtain a considerable number of both algae and fungi 

 from them. Our few excursions with Farlow, especially those to the seashore, opened our eyes to 

 the possibilities of keen-eyed and experienced collecting. Every form of plant life had its point, 

 or points, of interest, and we returned home from such a trip laden down with specimens and our 

 minds stored with information concerning them. His- first collecting was undoubtedly in the 

 vicinity of Boston, Cambridge, and Newton. He early visited the seashore of the north coast of 

 New England and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. These remained his principal 

 collecting places, but in his early years of teaching he collected on the south shore of New England 

 and proceeded on the north shore as far as Eastport. During his two years abroad he collected, 

 probably extensively, in some favored localities. He mentions Switzerland particularly for the 

 lichens and flowering plants. He was zealous also in his search for fungi, since he realized, as he 

 intimated again and again in his writings, that little was to be obtained from American sources 

 as to type or even reasonably authentic specimens of any kind, and an acquaintance with the 

 traditions of mycology was one of the first points to be gained for future progress. His collections 

 of marine algae at Woods Hole and Gloucester, Mass., and at Eastport, Me., supplemented by 

 his considerable collections at other places along the northeastern coast of the United States, 

 were the foundation of his Marine Algae of New England, and supplemented by his experiences 

 along the Florida coast in 1875 and the California coast in 1885, both trips in company with Asa 

 Gray, formed the personal experience basis of bis broader work on the marine algae of the United 

 States. Farlow made trips to the Bermuda Islands in 1881 and 1900, collecting all sorts of 

 cryptogams, but especially algae, fungi, and lichens. He detected during these visits several 

 species not noticed by any of the other botanists visiting the islands. 



While Farlow's trips to Florida and to Mexico, California, and the Bermudas were general 

 as to interest, yet marine algae were the principal feature. His mycological collecting was 

 largely done nearer home and almost exclusively in New England. Owing to his attraction 

 and more or less of propulsion toward phytopathology, the parasitic fungi are more prominent 

 in his published writings, yet it must be emphasized that he was a great collector and student of 

 the fleshy fungi and that he left unpublished a considerable series of magnificent colored plates 

 (already printed) of our American species. His studies on the Gymnosporangia or Cedar- 

 Apples of the United States (misprinted " The Gymnosporangia or Cider- Apples of the United 

 States" in first proof) is classic and was the forerunner of such monographic work on our fungi. 



