LIXyEA.N SOCIETY OF LOXBOX. 75 



to the Planters' Insurance Compauy at Greensborongb, Alabama, 

 and then for some years became literary assistant to Dr. Henry 

 Barnard, of Hartford, Connecticut. 



Although he bad a leaning to botany, dating from his medical 

 training, yet it was not till ho Avas lif ty-one years of age that be 

 took up its pursuit seriously. In 1S67 he was attached as a 

 volunteer botanist to the Expedition under Clarence King, which 

 was detailed to explore the 40th parallel, with Prof. W. AV, Bailey 

 as botanist in charge. In MarcK 186S Prof. Bailey resigned his 

 position, and AVatson stepped into bis place. The results of 

 the Expedition are to be found in the fifth volume of the official 

 report, which was principally worked up in the Tale Herbarium, 

 with occasional visits to the Harvard Herbarium to verify certain 

 types of western plants. 



In 1870 he was appointed keeper of the Harvard Herbarium, 

 then under the control of our honoured Foreign Member, the 

 late Asa Gray, whose successor he became. Thenceforward 

 science has benefited by numerous memoirs from his pen, and 

 up to the time of his death no less than IS contributions to 

 American Botany have appeared, mostly in the Proceedings of 

 the American Academy, many of which are elaborations of large 

 and difficult genera. In 1S7S be published the first, and 

 unhappily the only, part of his ' Bibliographical Index to North- 

 American Botany,' containing the Polypetalae. The ' Synoptical 

 Elora ' then joins on, and it was hoped that Dr. AVatson Avould 

 complete the work by issuing his account of the Incompleta) and 

 . Monocotyledones, left unfinished by Dr. Gray's death ; but it 

 was not to be so ; and we have yet to lament the fragmentary 

 state of American phytology for that part of its flora. 



The ' Botany of California ' was largely due to Dr. AVatson, 

 who took a share in the first volume, and a still larger one in 

 the second ; he also completed the publication of Lesquereux's 

 ' Manual of the Mosses of North America,' which the autlior's 

 failing health did not permit him to do himself ; and, with Pro- 

 fessor Coulter, he brought out in 1&89 a new edition, the sixth, 

 of Gray's ' Manual of the Botany of the States.' 



This large amount of work was possible partly on account of 

 the very few holidays he allowed himself. In 18SG he was 

 present at a meeting of this Society, but he only spent a few days 

 in this country, less than a week in all. A trip he made to 

 Guatemala in 1S85 for collecting was rich in results, but he 

 contracted malarial fever, from the eflccts of which he sufiered 

 during the remainder of his life. 



He was buried on March 11th by his own request in Mount 

 Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass., the pall-bearers being his 

 colleagues in the University. 



Chaeles Smith AV^ilkinsox was born in Northamptonshire in 

 1843. His iamily having emigrated to Melbourne in 18.j2, in 

 1809 he was a])pointcd to tlie Geological Survey of A'ictoria. 



