ELISIIA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. II 



engagements, he made a collection of over a thousand species (ex- 

 actly 1,031.) This was two hundred less than were then reckoned 

 as belonging to the flora of Massachusetts, and more than half the 

 number described in Elliott's Botany of Sout) Carolina and Georgia, 

 and about a fourth of the phenogamous flora of the United States, 

 as then known. He then adds that much ground still remains un- 

 examined. Most of these plants were found within about two miles 

 radius of Wilmington, and a number of maritime species discovered 

 at Smithville, and several from Rocky Point. Dr. Darlington, who 

 was one of his earliest and warmest friends, speaks of Mr. Curtis at 

 that date as a careful observer and sagacious botanist. 



At the time Mr. Curtis was pursuing his studies in Wilmington, 

 there were few professed botanists in the State. The year before 

 Dr. Curtis published his florula (1833),* H. B. Croom, Esq., and Dr. 

 H. Loomis made a pretty careful survey of Newbern, and printed a 

 catalogue of the plants they found growing in that neighborhood. 

 Subsequently (1837) Mr. Croom published an enlarged catalogue. 

 Mr. Croom was a lawyer, and a botanist of no mean ability, and 

 besides the above contributions, prepared a valuable monograph on 

 the Sarracenias which appeared in the third volume of the Annals 

 of the New York Lyceum. The memory of Mr. Croom received a 

 more distinguished record in the annals of botanic science than any 

 of his contemporaries or successors in North Carolina, having had a 

 genus (Croomia) named in honor of his contributions. 



In a recent contribution "Ihe Botanical Gazette, (April, 1885,) Dr. 

 A. W. Chapman, author of the Flora of the Southern States, says: 



"Fifty years ago, on one of those calm, hazy October evenings, 

 peculiar to the climate of Florida, the quiet of the pleasant town of 

 Quincy was interrupted by the rapid approach of a carriage with 

 attendant outriders, which, having made part of the circuit of the 

 public square, drew up before my oflBlce, and a gentleman of middle 

 age, spare habit, light hair and blue eyes, came forth and intro- 

 duced himself as Mr. Croom, of North Carolina. This was the com- 

 mencement of my brief intercourse with Hardy B. Croom, the dis- 

 coverer of Torreya; for as is well remembered, a year afterwards he 

 was lost at sea, with all of his family, on the passage froi.i New 

 York to Charleston. Of his personal traits, it is needless here to say 

 more than that he belonged to that class of wealthy and intelligent 

 Southern gentlemen whose homes, renowned for their unostenta- 

 tious hospitality, were the abode of all that is most charming in the 



* Dr. Curtis gives the date of his publication as 1833, but in the reprint I 

 have, it is stated that the paper was communicated to the Boston Journal of 

 Natural History in 1834. 



