74 MODERN TREATMENT OF ASTER 
brother already located there. Theodor Nees wrote especially on 
medical plants, was early at the botanical garden of Leyden, and 
in 1833 on becoming director of that at Bonn, began the publica- 
tion of his valuable illustrated ** Genera" of Germany, which was 
continued by other hands till 1860. 
The elder brother was the monographer of the Asters, Christian 
Gottfried Nees von Esenbeck, born 1776, who died at Breslau, 
1858, aged 82. His productive period was 1814-1841, writing 
on a great variety of botanical subjects ; beginning with freshwater 
algae, fungi, mosses and hepatics ; with monographs on grasses and 
Lauraceae besides Asters among higher plants. He was also a 
writer on entomology and philosophy. Nees was president of the 
Leopold Academy, professor 1818 of natural history at Erlangen, 
1819 at Bonn, 1830 at Breslau. His first work on Asters, Synop- 
sis Asterum, * was published during his brief period at Erlangen, 
1818, and sketched the outlines of the species then known to him 
and for which he was planning a more extensive treatment. During 
his eleven years at Bonn, although publishing many other dissim- 
ilar works meanwhile, he continued the work on the Asters, and 
its completion followed closely upon his beginning his career at 
Breslau, being printed there 1832 under title Genera et species 
Asterearum, + an octavo of 323 pages. He continued twenty-two 
years in his Breslau professorship, when he was removed in 1852 
for political reasons, and lived but six years longer; the last we hear 
of him is his giving certain aster-specimens to Schultz Bipontinus in 
1856, which found their way into the hands of Dr. Asa Gray at Har- 
vard. As to disposition made of Nees’ herbarium in which further 
representatives of his Asters should be sought, Gray made unavail- 
ing inquiry. Quite a considerable part afterward appeared in the 
Herb. Cosson, Paris, and in the Herb. Klatt, an herbarium recently 
added to the collections of the Cambridge Botanical Garden, from 
which numerous asters given by Nees to Schultz Bipontinus had 
Qd ynopsis specierum . . . Asterum, a thin quarto of 32 pages (Erlangen, n 
rare in America; copies are in the libraries of the Gray Herbarium and of Dr. J. H 
Barnhart. 
f Genera et species Asterearum, Breslau, Gruson, 1832; reissued, Nuremberg, 
eee 1833; its preface is signed by Nees, Breslau, Jan. 1832. To the reissue belong 
rly American copies, that of William Boott, given to Gray, and two of Dr. 
aedi: ; besides others like mine obtained later. 
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