330 ASA GEAY. 



young men who were afterwards to aid in the development of botanical 

 studies in the United States. His intercourse with them was always 

 free and unrestrained by formalities of any kind, and he seemed more 

 like a learned frieud than a teacher. Passing to and fro from his own 

 study to the Herbarium, he greeted all cordially, watching and criticising 

 sharply but good-naturedly the work that was going on. No one en- 

 joyed a hearty laugh more than he, and every now and then he would 

 brighten the work by some anecdote from the large stock which his re- 

 tentive memory ever had at hand ; always, however, for the purpose 

 of emphasizing some point, or illustrating some fact which he wished to 

 bring out more clearly, but never allowing the attention of those about 

 him to be distracted from their work. Life at the Herbarium was in- 

 deed a pleasure, and the more serious work was well seasoned and 

 spiced in the days when the agile assistant, Charles Wright, skipped 

 about like a squirrel, his diminutive body in Cambridge, his larger mind 

 wandering away in his beloved Cuba and the Pacific Islands, — when 

 Brewer, less continent than his teacher in the matter of anecdote, saw in 

 every plant before him some episode of his own life in camp. The 

 approach of Dr. Gray, heralded by his cheery laugh, or perhaps by a 

 mild anathema against the gardener, who every morning, regardless of 

 the intentions of nature, deluged the Cacti placed in the corridor, we all 

 understood to mean business, for, if joking was allowed, trifling was not. 

 We learned something about botanists as well as about botany, and often 

 wondered whether Robert Brown were really as great as he was repre- 

 sented ; and, on the rare occasions of a visit from a man like Dr. Torrey 

 or Dr. Engelmann, we asked ourselves whether there was any chance 

 that the younger generation of botanists would bear any comparison with 

 the older. None who have worked under Dr. Gray at the Herbarium 

 will forget the deep personal interest he always manifested in their 

 work and future prospects. He always encouraged and stimulated with- 

 out holding out false hopes. To those who wished to devote themselves 

 to botany in the years still recent, when it was scarcely possible for a bot- 

 anist to live by botany alone, he used to say : " Study medicine, and 

 if you then still want to be a botauist, go ahead. Your medicine will 

 keep your botany from starving." 



Great as was the direct influence of Dr. Gray upon the students with 

 whom he came in contact, his influence on the development of botany 

 in this country through the medium of his numerous text-books and 

 manuals was even more important. His first text-book, " Elements of 

 Botany," written when he was only twenty-six years old, shows many 

 of the best characteristics of his later works, being written in a smooth, 



