450 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
tive, Heer was for most of his life an invalid, suffering from 
pulmonary disease. For the last twelve years his work was 
carried on at his bedside or from his bed, assisted by a de- 
yoted and accomplished daughter; he seldom left his house, 
except to pass the last two winters in the milder climate of 
Italy. Last summer, having finished his “ Flora Fossilis 
Arctica,” in the hope of recruiting his exhausted strength he 
was removed to the most sheltered spot on the shores of the 
Lake of Geneva, but without benefit. He died at Lausanne, 
at his brother’s house, on the 27th of September, 1883. It 
has been well said of him, in a tribute which a personal friend 
and fellow-naturalist paid to his memory, that “a man more 
lovable, more sympathetic, and a life more laborious and pure, 
one could scarcely imagine.” 
Heer was elected into the Academy in May, 1877. He is 
botanically commemorated in a genus of beautiful Melastoma- 
ceous plants indigenous to Mexico. 
