To the memory of 



Charles F. Wheeler and Volney M. Spalding: 



modest American men of science, strong idealists and splendid 

 teachers. 



Wheeler was born in New York; studied in Mexico Academy and the University 

 of Michigan; served in the Civil War; was 20 years in a Michigan country drug- 

 store, which he made a center of fine intelligence ; was instructor in botany in the 

 Michigan Agricultural College for 12 years; and, finally, for 8 years research worker 

 in the United States Department of Agriculture. 



Spalding was born in New York; pursued high school and academic studies in 

 Ann Arbor, Michigan ; was teacher of botany in the University of Michigan for 28 

 years, broken only by studies in Germany under Detmer, Pf effer and Bref eld ; was 

 investigator for 6 years in the Carnegie Desert liaboratory at Tucson, Arizona; 

 and, finally, endured a long period of forced inaction in Southern California, 

 retaining, however, his clear mind and his scientific interests to the end. 



Wheeler studied critically the flora of a State, Spalding changed the type of 

 botanical teaching in our secondary schools. Each was my friend for nearly 40 

 years. The first showed me how to study flowering plants, opened my eyes to 

 the wonders of wood and field and was my companion in a thousand delightful 

 rambles. From him I had also my first lessons in French. The second taught 

 me how to study the parasitic fungus and where to find its literature, often read- 

 ing it with me when it was in foreign tongues. Each was devoted to the micro- 

 scope and to the laboratory method. Each served his generation faithfully and 

 now sleeps with his fathers. 



They reached a multitude of students whose gratitude remains, and so, in the 

 lovely words of Simonides, they lie 



ayripavTip xP^/"f^o' evXoyir} 



