16 Howe: Lucien Marcus Underwood 



least temporizing. Fifty years hence, perhaps, it will be generally 

 conceded that he rendered a notable service to botanical science in 

 insisting upon the importance of nomenclatural types for genera 

 and species, upon the importance of anchoring a specific name to 

 a certain definite specimen by which the validity of the species is 

 to be judged, and upon the importance, in like manner, of pinning 

 a generic name down to a certain definite species, to prevent the 

 endless wandering and shifting which have found such portentous 

 beginnings during the past two centuries. He saw clearly the 

 futility of action like that of a recent International Botanical Con- 

 gress in decreeing that certain generic names shall be " conserved" 

 without taking the trouble to specify for what they shall be con- 

 served. But names and their correct application, important as he 

 considered them, were after all incidental details in the accomplish- 

 ment of his main purposes. It was for many years his ambitious 

 hope to assist in the publication of a descriptive flora of North 

 America that should include all the known plants from the lowest 

 to the highest, with the entire continent and the West Indian 

 islands as its field. That he took a leading part in planning such 

 a work he would doubtless consider the crowning effort of his life. 

 That he lived to see the actual publication of five parts of a pro- 

 jected work of such a scope is a source of gratification to his 

 friends. 



Lucien M. Underwood was devoted to the world of plants, but 

 he was more devoted to the world of human beings. Nothing 

 human was foreign to him. He loved the beautiful in literature 

 and art as well as the beautiful in the exterior world. His inti- 

 mates will not soon forget the sympathetic fervor with which he 

 could read selected passages from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables 

 or from a treasured Life of Abraham Lincoln, or the delicacy 

 with which he could describe his emotions on first beholding the 

 Lion of Lucerne. His pupils will not soon forget the hours that 

 he cheerfully gave to their assistance or the personal interest that 

 he felt in their welfare. His friends will not soon forget his 

 generosity, his forbearance, his sympathy, or his loyalty. Lucien 

 M Underwood might have been a farmer, he might have been an 

 actor he might have been a physician, he might have been a 

 preacher ; but, he was a botanist and a human human-being 

 and botany and humanity are the richer. 









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