416 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



culture, as a preparation for technical scientific education, 

 undertaken by so ripe a classical scholar or so wide-cultured 

 a man. His many essays in English and Latin verse, some of 

 which have been privately printed, ought to be collected. Dr. 

 Bigelow lived, honored and trusted, to a good old age before 

 infirmities touched his frame, and only toward the close was 

 the brightness of his acute mind dimmed. The candle at 

 length burnt down, the flame flickered awhile in the socket, 

 and the light went out. 



The name will abide in botanical nomenclature. First ap- 

 peared in Rees' Cyclopedia the Bigelowia of Smith, founded 

 on the Adelia of Michaux. But that is Forestiera. Then 

 Sprengel, in 1821, founded a genus Bigelovia on a Brazilian 

 plant which he took to be a Rhamnacea, but it is a species of 

 Casearia. Again, in 1824, Sprengel gave the name to a part 

 of Spermacoce, the Borreria of G. Meyer. Then De Can- 

 dolle, in 1824, was proposing a Bigelowia on Solea concolor, 

 of our own New England, as the " Prodromus " records, when 

 he found he had to refer it to Noisettia. Lastly, in 1836, De 

 Candolle bestowed the name of Bigelovia upon some golden- 

 flowered Compositce of the southern United States, which had 

 borne the name of an Old World genus, Chrysocoma ( Anglice, 

 Golden-tuft), and he added the complimentary phrase : " A 

 Chrysocoma separatum dicavi cl. J. Bigelow qui florae Ameri- 

 canse auream coronam flora Bostoniensi et medica addidit." 

 Although this genus was founded upon only two or three 

 species, it has been vastly extended by the exploration of the 

 western regions of our country, where it forms a conspicuous 

 and characteristic portion of the low shrubby vegetation. 

 More than thirty North American species of Biglovia, besides 

 one of Mexico and two of the Andes of South America, now 

 commemorate our venerable late associate. Most of them 

 were introduced to the genus by the present writer. 



