CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY 17 
Knowing Mrs. Brandgee at her best, as I did, by days of the 
most critical conference, I am prepared to say that she was the 
greatest woman botanist that ever lived, a genuine genius for re- 
search. I] have known two such men, one a philosopher, the other 
a business man, er worst sin was excessive caution, which led 
lost them years before, by other martyrdoms. The discontinuance 
of the journal was the end of her publications as snch, thongh 
she may have overseen her husband’s issues. 
The extra leisure she now enjoyed enabled her to go east to 
inspect types, For two generations western botanists have been 
exasperated by the relics of the Linnean slogan that no descrip- 
tion shal] contain more than ten words, This stupid fad had led 
Gray and Watson to make fools of themselves in describing wes- 
o she started east, and made her first stop with me in Salt 
Lake City where she went over many of my types, spending some 
days discussing various systematic problems with me. en she 
started east and got as far as St, Louis when her infirmity (diabe- 
tex) became violent and she had to go home at once. Being a doc- 
tor she knew that to be at home was her only salvation. A few 
vinecd that there was no hope, and yet in the face of death made 
no effort to put her botanical house in order. can 
why because she felt she owed the world nothing. To one like my- 
self who believes that our first daty is to make the world better 
for our having lived in it, this seems a crime. 
It was said of Mrs. Brandegee that she was beautiful in her ear- 
ly days, but I doubt it because of angularity, she may have been 
handsome, but too angular for beauty, but as I remember her 
she was erect, showing her age (over eeventy) only in her long 
gray and unkempt hair, and angularity. She had ona mother- 
co 
