EXPLORATIONS OF PETERS, BEAUMONT, AND NEVIUS. 17 
THOMAS MINOTT PETERS. 
Thomas Minott Peters, of New England parentage, but a graduate 
of the University of Alabama, was engaged in the practice of law 
until his death, June 14, 1888. He served his State as a representa- 
tive in the legislative assembly and afterwards as a State senator. In 
1869 he was appointed a judge of the supreme court for a term of six 
years. In his love for botany he found recreation from his profes- 
sional duties, and his greatest enjoyment was to wander through the 
adjacent mountains in search of plants. The study of lichens and 
fungi attracted him particularly, and he was one of the few mycolo- 
gists working in the Southern field along with Curtis and Ravenel. Of 
his zeal and activity in this line the long list of Southern fungi of his 
contribution, published by M. A. Curtis and Berkeley, bears ample 
testimony. He was also a close observer and accurate student of the 
plants of higher orders. He first brought to light the delicate and 
extremely rare fern, Zrichomanes petersit, described by Gray, with 
others like it hidden in the dark recesses of rocky defiles and the so- 
called ‘‘rock houses.” He gave close attention to the species of Carex, 
furnishing the investigators of this difficult genus with material from 
a region unknown to botanists. In acknowledgment of the services 
rendered him, Boott, of London, one of the first authors on these plants, 
presented him with a copy of his magnificent work, Illustrations of 
the Genus Carex. These classical and valuable volumes Judge Peters 
‘bequeathed to the University of Alabama, his alma mater, together 
with his mycological herbarium and collection of Carices, all mounted 
and labeled. In 1880 the writer had the privilege of enjoying the 
company of this venerable botanist during his investigations of the 
forests in Lawrence and Winston counties, and also received from him 
much valuable information on the mountain flora of the State, made 
use of in the present work. 
BEAUMONT, NEVIUS, AND RECENT COLLECTORS. 
John F. Beaumont, of German extraction, was born in Pennsylva- 
nia in 1825. Judge Peters speaks of Beaumont as a man of a fair clas- 
sical education, an enthusiastic student of botany, and a contributor to 
our knowledge of Alabama plants who, following his own example, 
became the active correspondent of Tuckerman and the other botanists 
already named. After some years spent as a missionary in Africa, he 
returned to Alabama, where he taught school. Hediedat Troy about 
the close of the civil war. He discovered that interesting grass, 
Luziola alabamensis, first described in Chapman’s Flora (1860). 
The Rev. R. D. Nevius collected plants in 1853-54 in the vicinity of 
Tuscaloosa. He isthe discoverer of the singular shrub Neviusia, named 
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