326 ASA GRAY. 



tific writer, not surpassed by those of any of the illustrious names on 

 our roll, added much to the reputation of the society at home and abroad. 

 Elected a Corresponding Member in 1841, he became an active member 

 in 1842, ou his settlement in Cambridge, and served as Corresponding 

 Secretary from 1844 to 1850, and again from 1852 to 1863, and as 

 President from 1863 to 1873. During this long membership of more 

 than forty years, his attendance was always exemplary. The storms of 

 winter and the inclemencies of spring, which kept younger men at 

 home, did not prevent his coming from the remote Botanic Garden reg- 

 ularly to attend the meetings. Although an honorary member of most 

 of the learned societies of this country, and of many of the most promi- 

 nent societies of Europe, including the Royal Society of London, the 

 French Academy, and the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, of 

 which he was one of the very few Americans who have been elected 

 corresponding members, this Academy was the society in which he felt 

 the greatest interest, and was most at home. 



There are few volumes of our Proceedings which do not contain 

 important communications from his pen. One of the earliest of his 

 works, the " Chloris Boreali- Americana," was printed in the third 

 volume of the Academy's Memoirs, in 1846 ; and to subsequent vol- 

 umes he contributed " Plants? Fendleriana? Novi-Mexicanae," presented 

 in November, 1848 ; " Plantae Novaa Thurberianae," and " Note on 

 the Affinities of the Genus Vavcea, Benth., also of Rhyiidandra, Gray," 

 August and October, 1854; and a group of four papers, entitled 

 "Botanical Memoirs," in 1859, including one "On the Botany of 

 Japan, and its Relations to that of North America," — a remarkable 

 essay on the geographical distribution of plants, which stamped the 

 author as worthy to rank with the great botanists of the world. We 

 need not enumerate his many papers which have appeared in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Academy, for they alone would fill several volumes. 

 It was his custom to embody the results of his preliminary studies on 

 the North American flora in the form of notes on critical species, 

 descriptions of novelties, and monographs of genera, and sometimes 

 orders, of which by far the greater part first appeared in our Pro- 

 ceedings, usually under the heading of " Botanical Contributions," — 

 a long aud very valuable series, dating from the paper " On some New 

 Composit.ee from Texas," presented December 1, 1846, and ending with 

 the posthumous " Notes upon some Polypetalous Genera and Orders," 

 presented April 19, 1888. Nor should we forget the many biographical 

 notices in which he commemorated the lives and works of others with 

 an appreciating discrimination, written in a manner peculiarly his own. 



