344 Asa Gruij : Ills Life and Work. 



But the greatest of all of Dr. Gray's botanical Avorks is 

 his " Synoptical Flora of Xorth America," two parts of 

 which have been published, ''the first in 1878, being the 

 first part of Vol. II., Ganiopetalte after Conii)osit3e, that is, 

 the portion immediately following the second volume of 

 the 'Flora' of Torrey and Gray; and the second, in 1884, 

 covering the ground (Cai)rifoliaceaj to Compositae inclusive) 

 of the second volume of Torrey and Gray's 'Flora.' The 

 middle half of the entire Flora is thus completed. These 

 volumes contain eight hundred and fifty closely printed 

 pages, and it required ten years of excessive and hardly 

 interrupted labor to complete them. They are master- 

 pieces of clear and concise arrangement and of compact- 

 ness and beauty of method. There will hardly be found 

 in any work of descriptive botany a greater display of 

 learning, clearness of vision and analytical powers; and 

 few works of systematic botany have ever treated of a 

 broader field." * 



When we consider how much of the work on nearly all 

 of these educational books with the exception of the 

 "Flora" was accomplished while Dr. Gray scrupulously 

 performed all of his college duties, we get some idea of the 

 magnitude of the man. 



His writings and influence have done as much toward 

 the advancement of general science, and especially toward 

 the growth of the doctrine of Evolution, as his text-books 

 have done for the advancement of botany. One of his 

 earliest papers, showing the tendency of his mind in the 

 direction of evolution, was his observations upon the 

 " Relations of the Japanese Flora to that of Korth 

 America." I will quote what his colleague. Professor C. 8. 

 Sargent, says of this work : 



In 18.54 lie publi.slied the "Botany of the Wilkes Exploring Ex- 

 ])edition," a larj^e (juarto volume, accompanied by a folio atlas 

 containing a hundred inagnihcent i)lat(!s ; and in IS.jO he read his 

 paper, afterward published in the "Memoirs of tiie American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences," upon tlie "Diagnostic Characters 

 of Certain New Species of Plants, collected in Jajtan by Charles 

 Wright, with observations upon the delations of the Japanese 

 Flora to that of North America, and of other parts of the northern 

 temperate zone." 



This is Professor Gray's most remarkable contribution to science. 

 It at once raised liim to the very highest rank among philosophi- 



* From a s<k<'toli of Dr. Cray in the Xew York Snn of January .3, 188C, by 

 I'rofessor (". S. Sargent. 



