BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 219 



ond of which was for some thirty years the leading manual of the 

 plants of the North-eastern States. Although much of the con- 

 tents were compiled, the short diagnoses must have been original. 

 These short descriptions so beautifully expressed and so accu- 

 rately drawn from the best characters of the plant, made his 

 work most deservedly popular. Soon after the first edition was 

 published he begau, with Dr. Francis Booth, the collection of ma- 

 terials for a flora of New England. The mountains of Vermont 

 and New Hampshire were diligently explored, and considerable 

 progress was made in the proposed undertaking. In the mean- 

 time Dr. Bigelow had been made Professor of Materia Medica 

 and Botany in Harvard University, and had also received the 

 appointment of Rumford Professor of Technology. Some of the 

 publications of Muhlenberg, Nuttall, Eaton, and Torrey had 

 also appeared, and with his limited time and the increasing lit- 

 erature before the people, he decided to abandon the New Eng- 

 land Flora. The results of his study and investigations are easily 

 traced in the second edition of his Florula Bostoniensis, however, 

 which appeared in 1824. During the ten years since the appear- 

 ance of the first edition he had collected materials for the descrip- 

 tion of 26 new species, of which seven still stand in our manuals, 

 Ceanothus ovalis, Juncus militaris, Stellariaborealis, Acteea alba, 

 Lathyrus maritimus, Spira'nthes gracilis and Myriophyllum ten- 

 ellum. He also made a new genus, Bootia, founded upon the 

 Potentilla arguta of Pursh. Although still retaining its modest 

 title, this second edition was a virtual manual of New England 

 botany, describing 455 genera and no less than 1200 species. It 

 will be remembered that Carex and other difficult genera had re- 

 ceived little attention at this time. It was not until after the 

 second edition had appeared that Professor Dewey began his writ- 

 ings on Cartography. A third edition appeared in 1840, with 

 29 additional genera, but with the general body of the work re- 

 maining the same. This was the last work in this country ar- 

 ranged upon the artificial system. While realizing fully the 

 advantages of the natural arrangement, he still desired to pre- 

 serve the uniformity of his work, and therefore adhered to the old 

 method. 



During the years between 1814 and 1824 Dr. Bigelow did 

 most of his botanical work. Some idea of the versatility and 

 genius of the man may be formed from the facts that he was at 

 the time holding two professorships, both of recent endowment, 

 was one of the physicians of the Massachusetts General Hospital, 

 was carrying on a large private practice, was preparing a work 



