8 The Pennsylvania-German Society. 



years ago. And, even when monuments reared by 

 human hands do survive for many centuries, they 

 often fail to tell why and for whom they were erected. 

 An old writer quaintly remarks : " The pyramids, 

 doting with age, have forgotten the names of their 

 founders." But life in Nature must triumph over 

 oblivion, by reason of perpetual re-creation and re- 

 newal. 



If then the plant-world is able to preserve and 

 carry down to posterity the memory of persons other- 

 wise famoiis, it will certainly do much more for those 

 who, like Muhlenberg, have been closely associated 

 with it in a scientific way. And here, in one respect, 

 he has been fortunate above his fellow-workers. A 

 botanist may deal with collections gathered in remote 

 countries and win renown among the few advanced 

 students who seek his books in libraries or pore over 

 the dried specimens in his herbarium, or else he may 

 devote his time to the illustration of obscure orders, 

 which for their inspection require high powers of the 

 microscope. But the case is far different when the 

 plants are conspicuous and abundant, and constitute 

 a large portion of the flora of the woods, fields and 

 swamps of a thickly-peopled region like that of our 

 eastern states. Then the}^ are sure to attract, in their 

 living forms, generation after generation of amateur- 

 students, children of the schools, skilled botanists 

 and those who may be drawn to cultivate them for 

 their beauty or utility. Hence, the asters and the 

 golden-rods, the sedges and the grasses, which Muh- 

 lenberg saw, handled and described, and of whose ex- 



