PRESTON — BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. C. C. PARRV. 43 



Deeply affectionate, almost extravagantly fond of children, and 

 with a sense of humor which often sparkled in his home conversa- 

 tion, he was yet so reticent that only the intimate few were aware 

 of these traits in his character. With no expensive habits and 

 almost no wants save knowledge, he looked on money as of value 

 chiefly for the amount of this it could procure and diffuse. De- 

 voted not only to his own special study but to Natural Science in 

 general as a too much neglected part of the great educational field, 

 he lost no opportunity to support its claims as against the dull 

 abstractions of unused tongues and all exclusively text-book in- 

 struction. 



Of his scientific achievements I will leave those to speak who 

 shared in and were conversant with his labors. 



Prof. J- G. Lemmon — with whom he explored the San Bernardino 

 Valley, and in whose pleasant home, in the quietude of his herba- 

 rium. Dr. Parry's last days in California were spent — after paying 

 a feeling tribute to the memory of his friend, thus sums up his 

 western coast work: 



"Dr. C. C. Parry was most intimately connected with the flora 

 and the botanists of California. Since his early explorations on 

 the coast near San Diego, in 1849, the Doctor has made several 

 brief visits to different regions of the western slope, intent upon 

 some special discovery or study. During one visit it was the 

 curious little sand plant, the Chorizanthe, that caught his keen eye 

 and secured his careful discrimination. Another visit was devoted 

 to the Alders; another to the Cacti; etc. 



"In 1882 Dr. Parry traveled well over the Pacific slope, study- 

 ing the interesting family oi Arctostaphylos or 'Manzanita,' pub- 

 lishing the following year, in the Proceedings of the Davenport 

 Academy of Sciences, a monograph which cleared away much of 

 the misconception and ambiguity that has all along encumbered 

 our botanical literature, by showing that there were several distinct 

 forms mingled in previous descriptions. A second monograph, 

 read before the California Academy of Sciences, June 20, 1887, 

 still further elucidated the subject, and the two papers cited com- 

 plete our knowledge of the California manzanitas, Dr. Parry hav- 

 ing detected and described therein six new species, besides deter- 

 mining the proper limits of the other nine. 



"Later, in 18S7 and 1888, he performed like excellent services 

 in the examination of our Ceanothus family, many species of 

 which form our coast chaparral, while others constitute the valua- 

 ble forage plants called 'tea bushes' or 'deer brush' in the interior 

 mountain regions. In two able monographs, published February 

 and August, 1889, he has cleared up the mass of confusion in this 



