﻿BRIEFER ARTICLES 



CHARLES RENE ZEILLER 



marked the passing of the 

 or impossible to replace, and each s 



(with portrait) 

 teresting coincidence that November 19 15 should have 

 st distinguished paleobotanists of the 

 d Germany. Each was a leader hard 

 lw the light in the forties of the last 

 century. To another has fallen 

 the task of recording for American 

 botanists the obituary of Count 

 Solms-Laubach. The present 

 notice deals with Charles Rene 

 Zeiller, a son of the lost province 

 Lorraine. His early activities 

 were as a member of the auxiliary 

 corps of engineers in the Franco- 

 Prussian war of 1870. On the 

 scientific side he first busied him- 

 self with mineralogy and general 

 geological work. Later he be- 

 came more and more interested in 

 paleobotany and in this connec- 

 tion is a high exemplification of 

 the logical mind and catholicity 

 of view which are the attributes 

 of the Gallic race. Not only did 

 he study many fossil floras of 

 diverse geological ages and geographical occurrence and give many new 

 names to science, but he likewise wrote with distinction concerning the 

 climates and phytogeographical areas of the past, as well as of the 

 anatomy and evolutionary history of the types which came under his 

 notice. His stratigraphic accomplishments were of a high order of 

 merit also, in a field where plants have been thought by many to have 

 less value as indicators of geological time. 



Botanical Gazette , vol. 6 1 ] [^28 



