1C1 



ASA GRAY. 



(With Portrait.) 



The removal from among us of another leader of English- 

 speaking botanists is an event that can hardly be passed over 

 With the short and formal notice which is all that space will 

 usually allow us to devote to obituary notices. No one among our 

 teachers has more generally received, as not one has more 

 thoroughly merited, the respectful admiration of workers in all 

 branches of science. Specialist as he was, the tributes of esteem 

 and respect which flowed in upon him three years since, on his 

 seventy-fifth birthday, largely sent, as they were, by American 

 botanists, were furnished also by leaders in every other branch of 

 science ; and it may be doubted whether any botanist has ever 

 more naturally attracted to himself the affection, as well as the 

 admiration, of his fellow-workers. In this respect, indeed, Asa 

 Gray formed a remarkable contrast to the great English systematic 

 whose loss we deplored some years since. No one could fail to 

 respect and admire the marvellous power of steady work and 

 indomitable perseverance which Mr. Bentham brought to bear 



upon the science to which he devoted his life ; but in Asa Gray we 

 have lost one who, in addition to an equal power of work and a 

 wider range of thought, had that personal charm of manner which 

 is sometimes denied to the greatest among the leaders of men. 



To Dr. Asa Gray, perhaps more than any other foreign 

 botanist, the great collections of this country were for years 

 familiar; and, since his first visit to our shores in 1839, they have 

 constantly been consulted by him in connection with his works 

 upon the Flora of the western world. Before the Kew Herbarium 

 existed, the Hookerian collection on which it has been so largely 

 based was examined by him while yet in the hands of its then 

 owner at Glasgow ; while the old collections contained in the 

 British Museum were appreciated by him at their true value 

 as affording material for the history of American botany. At 

 every visit to Europe, a certain period was set apart for work at 

 these collections ; while at other times frequent communications 

 crossed the Atlantic containing questions which could only be finally 

 answered by a reference to the actual specimens of Gronovius or 

 °ther early collectors. It is, indeed, hardly too much to say that 

 the National Herbarium was known more thoroughly by Dr. Gray 

 than by any botanist not officially connected with it ; while so far 

 as the American specimens were concerned, his knowledge was as 



exhaustive as it was critical. 



Asa Gray was born at Sanquoit, in the township of Paris, in 

 Oneida County, on November 18th, 1810. At the age of seven, 

 his father moved to Paris Furnace, and established a tannery, and 

 Asa was employed, in the intervals of school, in feeding the bark- 

 raiU, and driving the horse that turned it, His education had begun 

 at the age of three, and by this time he was a champion speller 

 131 the numerous matches— the prototyp. of the " spelling-bee M 



Journal of Botany. — Vo&« 26, [Jvtm, 1888.] m 



