THURE KUMLIEN. 959 
and sympathetic enthusiasm, which was as contagious as 
hearty mirth. 
- * Most admirable was Mr. Kumlien's ability to endure the 
severest blows of fortune, without losing his composure of 
mind. Misfortunes which would have prostrated other men, 
left him only a little sadder, but no less determined and com- 
posed. The death and illness of beloved friends and relatives 
were very keenly felt by one so sensitive, but they fell on his 
thoughts like the gloom of night on quiet waters, causing no 
. ripple, only obscuring their crystal brightness till the coming 
of the day." 
Mr. Kumlien was the recipient of honorary degrees from 
several institutions of learning, and was corresponding mem- 
ber of a number of learned societies in Europe and America. 
The only botanieal paper which I know of his having 
published, appeared not many years sinee, in the Proceed- 
ings of the Wisconsin Academy. The subject was that of 
the gradual disappearance of species from the Wisconsin 
flora; a record of what he had witnessed in this direction, 
during the many years of his residence; a theme which the 
sympathetie, or poetie, side of his character may have moved 
him to take up. The changes wrought upon the face of 
nature, more especially sueh as lessen the diversity of forms, 
by the extinction of one's favorites of the grove or hill-side, ` 
are always painful to a soul refined as his was. And this re- 
minds me that the latest letter I received from him, was 
tinged with melancholy as he related how our long cherished 
. tamarack swamp, near his home, had been bereft of its trees, 
its ericaceous undershrubs, and its delightful orchids ; and, 
that human beings of the common sort, had drained it and 
ploughed it and planted it with market-garden vegetables. 
Among the purple autumnal Asters, as they grew around 
him there, at least in the earlier time, there was one 
species which received from Professor Fries, the name Aster 
Kumlient. 
A rare and still but little known Ranuneulaceous plant of 
the middle Sierra Nevada in California; a flower with the 
