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ASA GRAY 
Asa Gray, foremost American botanist of the nineteenth century (b. 1810; d. 1888), 
was trained to be a physician, but relinquished medicine for botany. He taught 
during the school year, made collecting trips in summer or worked in European 
botanical centers, and built up the famous Gray Herbarium of Harvard University. 
As professor of botany at Harvard from 1842. he taught many of the older botanists 
of the present generation. In 1836 he began a series of elementary textbooks, 
which were widely used for more than fifty years. His many botanical publications 
are chiefly systematic. A great teacher, a close friend of his students, a constant 
worker and author of admirably written scientific and popular articles, he is the 
most important figure among the founders of botany in America 
