272 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



way his own interest in the subject was at length excited, he took it up 

 With characteristic determination to know well whatever he undertook 

 to know at all. He collected and carefully studied the plants of the 

 central part of Ohio, made neat sketches of the minuter parts of many 

 of them, especially of the Grasses and Sedges, entered into communica- 

 tion with the leading botanists of the country, and in 1840 he published 

 " A Catalogue of Plants, native or naturalized, in the vicinity of Colum- 

 bus, Ohio " (pp. 63), to which he added a few pages of valuable notes. 

 His only other direct publication in phtenogamous botany is a short 

 article upon three new plants which he had discovered in that district, 

 contributed to the American Journal of Science and the Arts, in the 

 year 1842. The observations which he continued to make were com- 

 municated to his correspondents and friends, the authors of the " Flora 

 of North America," then in progress. As soon as the flowering plants 

 of his district had ceased to afford him novelty, he turned to the Mosses, 

 in which he found abundant scientific occupation, of a kind well suited 

 to his bent for j^atient and close observation, scrupulous accuracy, and 

 nice discrimination. His first publication in his chosen department, the 

 3fusci Alleghanienses, was accompanied by the specimens themselves of 

 Mosses and Hepaticte collected in a botanical expedition through the 

 Alleghany Mountains, from Maryland to Georgia, in the summer of 

 1843 (the writer of this notice being his companion). The specimens 

 were not only critically determined, but exquisitely prepared and 

 mounted, and with letter-press of great perfection ; the whole forming 

 two quarto volumes, which well deserve the encomium bestowed by 

 Pritzel in his Thesaurus.* It was not put on sale, but fifty copies were 

 distril)uted with a free hand among bryologists and others who would 

 appreciate it. f 



In 1846 Mr. Sullivant communicated to the American Academy the 

 first part, and in 1849 the second part, of his "Contributions to the 

 Bryology and Hepaticology of North America," which appeared, one 

 in the third, the other in the fourth volume (new series), of the 

 Academy's Memoirs, — each with five plates, from the author's own 



* " Huic splendidae impressae 292 specierura enamerationi accedit elegantis- 

 Biraa speciminum omnium exsiccatorum coUectio." 



t A tribute is justly due to tlie memory of the second Mrs. (Eliza G. Wlieeler) 

 Sullivant, a lady of rare accomplishments, and, not least, a zealous and acute 

 bryologist, her husband's efficient associate in all his scientific work until her 

 death, of cholera, in 1850 or 1851. Her botanical services are commemorated 

 in IJi/pntan Sullivantice of Schimper, a new moss of Ohio. 



