BENJAMIN D. GREENE. 1 



Benjamin D. Greene, Esq., of Boston, died on the 14th 

 of October last, at the age of sixty-nine years. He was born 

 in 1793, and graduated at Harvard University in the year 

 1812. He first pursued legal studies, partly in the then cele- 

 brated school at Litchfield, Connecticut, and was duly ad- 

 mitted to the bar in Boston. He then took up the study of 

 medicine, and completed his medical course in the medical 

 schools of Scotland and Paris, taking his medical degree at 

 Edinburgh in the year 1821. The large advantages of such 

 a training having been enjoyed, Mr. Greene did not engage 

 in the practice of either profession. An ample inheritance, 

 which rendered professional exertion unnecessary, conspiring 

 with a remarkably quiet and contemplative disposition and a 

 refined taste, led him to devote his time to literary culture and 

 to scientific pursuits. His fondness for botany, which early 

 developed, was stimulated by personal intercourse with vari- 

 ous European botanists, and especially with his surviving 

 friend, the now venerable Sir William Hooker, then professor 

 at the University of Glasgow, to whom he naturally became 

 much attached, and by whom he was highly appreciated. 



In botany, as in everything else, Mr. Greene sought to be 

 silently useful. He never himself published any of his dis- 

 coveries or observations. The few species to which his name 

 is annexed were given to the world at second hand. But his 

 collections were extensive, his original observations numer- 

 ous and accurate, and both were freely placed at the disposal 

 of working botanists. He early saw that the great obstacles 

 to the advantageous prosecution of botanical investigation in 

 this country, and especially in New England, were the want 

 of books and the want of authentic collections ; and these 



1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxxv. 449. (1863.) 



