8 ESS A YS. 



of that amiable and simple-hearted man, in 1768 ; and by 

 him many seeds, living plants, and interesting observations 

 were communicated to Linnaeus, but few, if any, dried speci- 

 mens. Dr. Garden, who was a native of Scotland, resided in 

 Charleston, South Carolina, from about 1745 to the com- 

 mencement of the American Revolution, devoting all the time 

 he could redeem from an extensive medical practice to the 

 zealous pursuit of botany and zoology. His chief correspond- 

 ent was Ellis at London, but through Ellis he commenced a 

 correspondence with Linnaeus, and to both he sent manuscript 

 descriptions of new plants and animals with many excellent 

 critical observations. None of his specimens addressed to the 

 latter reached their destination, the ships by which they were 

 sent having been intercepted by French cruisers ; and Linnaeus 

 complained that he was often unable to make out many of Dr. 

 Garden's genera for want of the plants themselves. Ellis was 

 sometimes more fortunate, but as he seems usually to have con- 

 tented himself with the transmission of the descriptions alone, 

 we find no authentic specimens from Garden in the Linnaean 

 herbarium. 



We have now probably mentioned all the North American 

 correspondents of Linnaeus ; for Dr. Kuhn, who appears only 

 to have brought him living specimens of the plant which bears 

 his name, and Catesby, who shortly before his death sent a 

 few living plants which his friend Lawson had collected in 

 Carolina, can scarcely be reckoned among the number. 1 



none now but real professors can pretend to attain it. As I love you I 

 tell you our sentiments." (Letter of April 20, 1754.) " You have begun 

 by your ' Species Plantarum ' ; but if you will be forever making new 

 names, and altering good and old ones, for such hard names that convey 

 no idea of the plant, it will be impossible to attain to a perfect knowledge 

 in the science of botany." (Letter of April 10, 1755 : from Smith's Se- 

 lection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, etc.) 



1 In a letter to Haller, dated Leyden, January 23, 1738, Linnseus 

 writes : " You would scarcely believe how many of the vegetable produc- 

 tions of Virginia are the same as our European ones. There are Alps in 

 the country of New York, for the snow remains all summer long on the 

 mountains there. I am now giving instructions to a medical student 

 here, who is a native of that country, and will return thither in the course 

 of a year, that he may visit those mountains, and let me know whether 



