140 The Botanical Gazette. [May, 
After Dr. Gray’s death it was a fitting thing to so arrange 
Dr. Watson’s time that he could have abundant opportunity 
to continue the ‘‘Synoptical Flora,” and botanists were satis- 
fied that this work would be continued more nearly in the 
spirit of its great author than in the hands of any other 
botanist. But now not a published page has been added, and 
our greatest botanical work bids fair to remain even more in- 
complete than its forerunner, the Flora of North America. 
However, much work had been done among the polypetalous 
orders, and it is to be hoped that that part at least can ap- 
pear with something like completeness. 
As a botanist, Dr. Watson was thorough and painstaking, 
the charge of hasty conclusions never having been laid at his 
were clear and original. Recognizing the temporar. ae 
of our present fabric of classification, he has frequently “ 
only withheld a concrete public expression © 
cause he did not: deem his knowledge or any enue 
edge of affinities sufficient. : 
Systematic botany has lost another one of its fg 
ponents, another one of that generation which is fast eee 
away. at the new generation is to do for the scienct 
hard to predict, but it is evident that as the old leaders eae 
Pear we are to become more of a democracy. Sereno bide: 
