THURE KUMLIEN 951 
subserve ambitious ends, and one to whom science either in 
itself, or for the enjoyment which it brings to the inner and 
intellectual or sentient man, is enough, without the praise of 
men. 
A purer, nobler type of the naturalist of the reserved and 
quiet non-advertising class, there probably was not, in his 
day, in America, than THURE Lupwia THEODORE KUMLIEN, 
who departed this life at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the fifth 
of August last, in the seventieth year of his age. 
Among American botanists of his time it may well be he 
was not widely known. Other branches of natural history 
more largely occupied his time; and even in botany, his 
active correspondence was more with European than Ameri- 
can men. Affected with a kind of diffidence not so very un- 
common, at least in Europe, with men of finest mould, of 
great intelligence and of deep and thorough scholarship, he 
was extremely averse to figuring in public—even before the 
small scientific publie—by writing and printing his own most 
valuable observations. It was owing to this reticence that no 
botanists in our country knew him well, except such as had 
been, fortuitously-or providentially, brought within the happy 
circle of his personal acquaintance. But still there will be 
more than one botanist among us, with whom the name and 
memory of Thure Kumlien will forever be held in deep and 
loving veneration. 
The following I transcribe from a beautiful necrologue 
lately published by Mr. W. M. Wheeler, in the form of a 
supplement to the Annual Report of the board of trustees 
of the Milwaukee Public Museum, an institution which my 
early instructor and life-long friend had, at the time of his 
death, been serving for some years in the office of Conser- 
vator : 
“Thure Kumlien was born in Herrlunda parish, Wester-. 
gothland, Sweden, on the ninth of November, 1819. His 
father was an army quartermaster and owned and operated 
several large estates. Thure, the oldest of fourteen children, 
was early entrusted to a private tutor, soon entered the gym- 
