Ohituary Notices. 15 



a steadfast friend. As has been well said of him, " his 

 character was harmonious in an unwonted degree." 



His great work, which is indeed of very high merit, is 

 his " Vegetation of the Earth according to its Climatologi- 

 cal Distribution : a Sketch of the Comparative G-eography 

 of Plants," in 2 vols., published at Leipzig in 1872. For 

 the production of such a work the course which would 

 naturally commend itself as likely to be the most efficient, 

 would be to allot to several, authors, famed for scientific 

 ability, and inhabiting the different regions of the globe, 

 the botany of that particular part where the lot of each 

 might be cast, and thus by the combination of these a 

 work in some degree equal to the occasion might be ex- 

 pected. But failing this series, probably no one author 

 could have been found who could have done more justice 

 to such a subject than Professor Grisebach. His mind, 

 which was of a very high order, had been continuously 

 directed to this subject for many years. His first impres- 

 sions regarding the relation of a Flora to the soil and 

 climate were received when he was little more than fifteen 

 years of age, amongst the varied vegetation of the Hartz 

 district ; and, while still a student at Gottingen University, 

 Grisebach contributed to the periodical called "Flora" an 

 account of a Botanical Journey to Dauphine and Provence, 

 wliich he had made in the autumn of 1833. The same 

 special tendency is shown in his article, " On the Influence 

 of Climate on the Limitation of the Natural Flora," which 

 he published in the " Linnaea," in 1838. Indeed, in 1837, 

 or thirty-five years before the appearance of the work, the 

 plan which he intended to pursue in it had been laid down 

 in a small handbook. In 1839 he was appointed by the 

 Hanoverian Government to undertake a scientific journey 

 to Turkey, v/hich he accomplished ; and on his return he 

 published an account of this " Journey through Eoumelia 

 and to Brussa," in 2 vols., in 1841 ; a work of great value 

 and of deepest interest to the botanist ; and this was fol- 

 lowed in 1843-5 by another work of 2 volumes, entitled 

 " Spicilegium Florae Eumelicse." After his return in 1841, 

 however, he also began that regular series of articles which 

 kept him in a special manner au courant for his " Vegeta- 

 tion of the Earth." I refer, of course, to his Annual Reports 



