. 
138 The Botanical Gazette. [May, 
3: 
Sereno Watson appeared suddenly in the botanical world. 
So far as we know, he had no puerile work to lament, the 
common experience of most botanists, but when known asa 
botanist at all he was in the foremost rank. This stepping at 
once, full-equipped, among the leaders, without any prelimi- 
nary service, is one of the distinguishing marks of his botani- 
cal career. 
His apparently accidental connection as botanist with the 
U.S. Geological Survey under Clarence King was the occa- 
sion of his sudden celebrity as a botanist. Botanical col- 
lectors had visited the great west before and have multiplied 
since, but Watson brought back from the Great Basin region 
not only a magnificent collection of plants, but also such an 
ability to study it, that his report, technically known as the 
‘Botany of the 4oth parallel” (vol. V of the Clarence Kings 
Reports), has become one of the classics of American botany: 
This contact with the mosses led to his being asked, upon # f 
death of Mr. Thomas P. James in 1882, to take editor, 
ates of Lesquereux and James’ ‘‘Mosses of North Ane 
then in press. This involved a vast amount of critical an 
editorial labor, and must have seemed a sad waste of time ° 
@ man overwhelmingly busy in other directions. : he 
: In 1878 there appeared the first part of his “<Bibliogt9P 
ical Index”, including the Polypetalae of North Americ® 
is @ great loss to American botany that Dr. Watson 7 
