jewelry. As Lesquereux' reputation as a bryologist grew, so did 

 his distinction as a student of fossil plants. Lesquereux' research 

 on the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian floras of Pennsylvania 

 and several other states culminated in the publication of his 

 monumental Description of the Coal Flora of the Carboniferous 

 Formation in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States 

 (1879-83). This work stands as the first great monograph on 

 American fossil plants, and the specimens described therein thus 

 have particular scientific and historical significance. Because of 

 Lesquereux' association with Agassiz — Lesquereux spent sev- 

 eral months each year working on collections at Harvard — 

 many of the Coal Flora collections were deposited in the Boston 

 Museum of Natural History, from which they were moved to 

 Harvard in 1892. Darrah (1969) estimated that some 60% of 

 Lesquereux' type and figured specimens from the Coal Flora are 

 housed in the Paleobotanical Collections of the Botanical 

 Museum; most of his later collected types reside in the United 

 States National Museum. 



Lesquereux' interest in fossil plants was not restricted to the 

 Carboniferous System; he collected widely in the Cretaceous 

 and Tertiary beds of the United States, and much of this mate- 

 rial is also housed in the Botanical Museum. 



Other collectors also contributed to the early growth of Har- 

 vard's paleobotanical collections. Agassiz was responsible for 

 bringing much now classic material to Cambridge from Europe, 

 and the combined talent of Agassiz and Lesquereux made Har- 

 vard an attractive place to deposit many of the important fossil 

 plant collections that were being discovered in the latter half of 

 the nineteenth century. The list of collectors who donated fossil 

 plant specimens to the Agassiz Museum includes many of the 

 great names in paleontology: men such as Walcott, Bronn, Daw- 

 son, and Lyell. Some 800 beautifully preserved specimens col- 

 lected by Oswald Herr from the Miocene lake beds of Oeningen, 

 Switzerland, were deposited in the Museum, and more than 

 2000 fossils from the Cretaceous Denver and Dakota groups 

 were identified by Lesquereux from material collected by Arthur 

 Lakes and Charles Sternberg. 



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