ASA GRAY. 749 



ing the summer, the chair of botany in the recently founded University 

 of Michigan, but with the condition that he should have a year abroad 

 for study ; and the year was given to this object. All the herbaria of 

 Europe were carefully examined with regard to the type-specimens of 

 American plants, and full notes taken for use in the discrimination and 

 identification of species. The fortieth volume of the American Journal 

 (April, 1841) opens with a highly interesting paper by him, giving ac- 

 counts of these herbaria, their contributors, condition, and special char- 

 acters, commencing with that of Linnsieus and the story of its career before 

 reaching the Linnean Society of London. His labors abroad involved 

 an immense amount of detailed and exact observation, requiring 

 thorough knowledge, excellent judgment, and a retentive memory ; and 

 he came home well stored for the work which he and Torrej' had in 

 hand. 



Moreover, he made during the trip the personal acquaintance of the 

 leading botanists of England and the Continent, and had from all a 

 cordial reception. 



"In Glasgow he made the acquaintance of William Jackson Hooker, 

 the founder of the greatest of all herbaria, the author of many works 

 upon botanj^ who had already published a large part of his "Flora 

 Boreali-Americana," in which were described the plants of British 

 North America, a work just then of special interest to the young Ameri- 

 can, because it first systematically displayed the discoveries of David 

 Douglas, of Drummond, Richardson, and other English travelers in 

 North America. At Glasgow, too, was laid the foundation for his life- 

 long friendship with the younger Hooker, then a medical student seven 

 years his junior, but destined to become the explorer of New Zealand 

 and Antarctic floras, the intrepid Himalaya traveler, the associate of 

 George Bentham in the authorship of the "Genera Plantarum," a presi- 

 dent of the Royal Society, and, like his father, thedirector of the Royal 

 Gardens at Kew. At Edinburgh he saw Greville, the famous crypto- 

 gamist; while in London, Francis Boott, an American long resident in 

 England, the author of the classical history of the genus " Carex," and 

 at that time secretary of the Linnean Society, opened to him every bo- 

 tanical door. Here he saw Robert Brown, then the chief botanical fig- 

 ure in Europe, with the exception, perhaps, of De Candolle; and Men- 

 zies, who fifty years before had sailed as naturalist with Vancouver on his 

 great voyage of discovery ; and Lambert, the author of the sumptuous 

 history of the genus " Pinus," in whose hospitable dining-room were 

 stored the plants upon which Pursli had based his North American 

 Flora. Here, too, he met Bentham and Lindley and Bauer, and all the 

 other workers in his scientific field. 



"A visit to Paris brought hiui the acquaintance of the group of dis- 

 tinguished botanists then living at the French capital : P. Barker 

 Webb, a writer upon the botany of the Canaries; the Baron Delessert, 

 Achille Richard, whose father had written the Flora of Michaux ; Mir- 



