416 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
culture, as a preparation for technical scientific education, 
undertaken by so ripe a classical scholar or so wide-cultured 
aman. His many essays in English and Latin verse, some of 
which have been privately printed, ought to be collected. Dr. 
Bigelow lived, honored and trusted, to a good old age before 
infirmities touched his frame, and only toward the close was 
the brightness of his acute mind dimmed. The candle at 
length burnt down, the flame flickered awhile in the socket, 
and the light went out. 
The name will abide in botanical nomenclature. First ap- 
peared in Rees’ Cyclopedia the Bigelowia of Smith, founded — 
on the Adelia of Michaux. But that is Forestiera. Then 
Sprengel, in 1821, founded a genus Bigelovia on a Brazilian 
plant which he took to be a Rhamnacea, but it is a species of 
Casearia. Again, in 1824, Sprengel gave the name to a part 
of Spermacoce, the Borreria of G. Meyer. Then De Can- 
dolle, in 1824, was proposing a Bigelowia on Solea concolor, 
of our own New England, as the “ Prodromus” records, when 
he found he had to refer it to Noisettia. Lastly, in 1836, De 
Candolle bestowed the name of Bigelovia upon some golden- 
flowered Composite of the southern United States, which had 
borne the name of an Old World genus, Chrysocoma (Anglice, 
Golden-tuft), and he added the complimentary phrase: “ A 
Chrysocoma separatum dicavi cl. J. Bigelow qui floree Ameri- 
ean auream coronam flora Bostoniensi et medica addidit.” 
Although this genus was founded upon only two or three 
species, it has been vastly extended by the exploration of the 
western regions of our country, where it forms a conspicuous 
and characteristic portion of the low shrubby vegetation. 
More than thirty North American species of Bigelovia, besides 
one of Mexico and two of the Andes of South America, now 
commemorate our venerable late associate. Most of them 
were introduced to the genus by the present writer. 
