ALEXANDER BRAUN.? 
WE announce with sorrow the death of this excellent bota- 
nist, which took place in Berlin, on the 29th of March, after a 
short illness. Systematic botanists of the first class are every- 
where rare, and especially in Germany, where they have gone 
out of fashion, all attention being turned to histology and the 
like. In Braun’s earlier days there was a goodly array of 
systematic botanists in Germany; at his decease there are 
very few of mark, although signs of revival are apparent. 
Alexander Braun was born at Ratisbon, May 10, 1805, but 
was brought up at Carlsruhe, where his father became a trusted 
officer in the post-office department. Fifty years ago there 
was a knot of closely-allied students at the university of 
Heidelberg, consisting of Braun, Carl Schimper, Agassiz, and 
Engelmann. Two-of them were transferred to our own soil ; 
the latter is now the sole survivor. Three of them went 
soon to Munich, where Oken, Schelling, Dollinger, and Mar- 
tius were teaching; but Braun, Agassiz, and Engelmann met 
again as fellow-students at Paris in 1832. The first two 
became allied afterwards by the marriage of Agassiz with 
Braun’s sister. About the time that Dr. Engelmann came to 
the United States, Braun was made professor of botany and 
zoology in the Polytechnic School of Carlsruhe. In 1846 he 
took the chair of botany in the university of Freiburg in the 
Breisgau ; was transferred to Giessen in 1850; but in the 
spring of 1851 was called to Berlin, as the successor to Link 
and Kunth, taking charge of the botanic garden as well as of 
the professorship. Although he had nearly reached the age of 
seventy-two, and felt the full weight of his years, yet he was 
assiduously attending to his official duties when he was sud- 
denly prostrated by acute disease of the chest, terminating 
1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xiii. 471. (1877.) 
