• VV v ■■--. 



Botanical Gazette. 



Vol. VIII. MAY, 1883. No. 5. 



Some North American Botanists. 



V. Jacob Bigelow. 



To the older botanists of New England the name of Jacob 

 Bigelow early became a household word. His botanical work 

 was done at a time when there was no professedly complete man- 

 ual of the plants of the Eastern States in existence, and when no 

 local floras of any extent had been compiled. The only scientific 

 contribution toward a knowledge of the plants of New England 

 was the catalogue published in 1785 by the learned and energetic 

 Manasseh Cutler. The flora of Michaux was too general and 

 ill-adapted for use as a practical manual. Marshall's Arbustum 

 Americanum, which appeared in 1786, was little more than an 

 annotated alphabetical catalogue of trees and shrubs, the most of 

 which grew in Pennsylvania. The other contributions to a 

 knowledge of American botany accessible to Northern students 

 when Bigelow began to write, were nothing more than a few lo- 

 cal catalogues and scattered articles in various publications, un- 

 less, indeed, we accept Prof. B. S. Barton's work on Elementary 

 Botany, which appeared in 1803, and which, if it had little scien- 

 tific merit, could at least claim the honor of being the first 

 American text- book. With this meagre literature Jacob Bigelow 

 began his botanical labors. He had been raised a farmer's boy, 

 educated at Harvard, whence he graduated with honors, and had, 

 in 1810, begun the practice of medicine in Boston. Eor some 

 time young Bigelow was much exercised as to the choice of a pro- 

 fession, the college graduates of that day being limited to the 

 three <( learned professions," divinity, law and medicine. His 

 natural aversion to medicine was removed by the eloquence and 

 enthusiasm of Dr. John Warren, who delivered a course of lec- 

 tures at Harvard each year on the subject. By teaching school 

 and by various other means he succeeded in graduating from the 

 medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1810 

 in his twenty-third year. At this University he formed the ac- 



