10 WILLIAM G1LSON FARLOW— SETCHELL [M ™ 01R \vo?xxt 



His other published work on the Rusts or Uredineae shows his interests and insight into this 

 difficult group of plant parasites. He went so far as to have prepared and even lithographed 

 figures of the spores (telia) of the species of some of the more critical genera, but the text was 

 never prepared. In regard to the perplexing synonymy, he used to remark that it was very 

 likely that Adam may have named all the flowering plants, but that Eve must have named the 

 Uredineae. Eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire, particularly the White Mountain 

 region, were his field for fungi, as well as other cryptogams, nor did he pass unnoticed the flower- 

 ing plants. His friendship with such inveterate collectors and students as the Faxon brothers, 

 led him even into other New England territory. In later life his summers were usually spent in 

 New Hampshire, either at Shelburne, where he found so many rarities, or, after his marriage, in 

 his summer residence at Chocorua, overlooking the lake, where the field for fungi of all kinds 

 was of the richest. He himself has told the very interesting story of how, while resting on a 

 couch on the veranda of his place at Chocorua, he heard a pattering noise and, looking, saw a 

 squirrel with some object in his mouth. A movement alarmed the squirrel, who dropped what 

 it was carrying and fled. On examining the object, Farlow found it to be one of the hypogaeous 

 fungi which are so seldom collected and which, without this contribution from the friendly animal, 

 he might never have seen. It brought also to his mind the larger suggestion of the dispersal 

 agency we are now realizing so well in California, concerned in connection with hypogaeous 

 fungi in general. In his honor, one of the shoulders of Mount Chocorua, running from the peak 

 along the ledges to the "Brook Trail," where he did much of the collecting of his last years, has 

 been named Farlow Ridge. The last years of his life, Farlow spent much of his time putting the 

 various specimens he had collected into condition, and since his death some of them have been 

 sent out under the title of "Reliquiae Farlowianae." While realizing that the "closet-botanist" 

 was a very important and helpful member of the profession, his various expressions as to fear of 

 his being classed strictly in that ilk gave evidence of the importance he attached to field studies. 

 As a collector in the field, Farlow was very keen and successful, and his herbarium is full 

 of results of his activity in this line. The influence of the great collections accumulated by Asa 

 Gray, the foundation of the Gray Herbarium of to-day, rich in variety and in type material of 

 the flowering plants and the vascular cryptogams, and poor, but not entirely lacking, in rep- 

 resentatives, and very valuable ones, of the lower cryptogams, as well as the influence of Asa 

 Gray himself, by example and by practice, led Farlow very early to the task of bringing 

 together a similar authoritative and working collection of cryptogamous plants, particularly of 

 lichens, algae, and fungi. Farlow's earlier experiences in attempting to put into order and 

 availability the cryptogamic portions of Gray's herbarium and to arrange and classify his own 

 collections were augmented by his many and extremely valuable purchases and exchanges. 

 The first considerable collection to be purchased was the fungus herbarium of Rev. M. A. 

 Curtis, of Asheville, N. C. This was acquired for Farlow by Asa Gray while the former was 

 studying in Europe. The Curtis collection is rich in specimens from Schweinitz, in those 

 collected by the various exploring expeditions, and in duplicate specimens retained by Curtis 

 from sendings abroad for identification and publication by such European authorities as Elias 

 Fries, Berkeley, De Notaris, Desmazieres, Duby, and others. This collection was purchased in 

 1872. Through "friends" of Harvard University, there was purchased in 1898 the collections of 

 Prof. Edward Tuckennan, of Amherst College, the founder of American lichenology. These 

 collections were rich in types and other authentic specimens of Tuckerman and all the lichen- 

 ologists of his day. The Tuckerman collections contain most of the older and rarer lichen 

 Exsiccati as well as the unrivaled series of North American specimens collected by the founder 

 and his correspondents. It has also a representation of the lichens of the various exploring 

 expeditions undertaken by the United States. To these collections of fungi and lichens, Farlow 

 added enormously through his own collecting and by those received through his pupils and 

 correspondents. The marine algae are due to his own efforts and those of his correspondents, 

 the only collection of any size acquired by purchase being the small De Alton Saunders collec- 

 tion. In the collection of marine algae, however, are specimens from every then living phy- 

 cologist of note as well as from those who preceded them. I am not in possession of any exact 



