138 SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



an esoteric doctrine, but was destined to come 

 into general use and change the character of 

 botanical instruction." He himself was the first 

 to apply it in any big work, and found his oppor- 

 tunity, when, in 1826, he wrote, in their natural 

 orders, of the plants collected by Dr. Edwin 

 James, botanist, in 1820, to Major Long's Expe- 

 dition to the Rocky Mountains. This was the 

 earliest treatise of the kind written in America ; 

 and his energy in this direction being aglow, he 

 set to work in 1831 on an American edition of 

 Lindley's 'Introduction to the Natural System of 

 Botany and added a catalogue of the North 

 American genera on the same plan. 



Not only Dr. Edwin James, but other botanical 

 friends, were fond of entrusting their specimens, 

 ideas or manuscript to his categorical and edi- 

 torial care. Lewis von Schweinitz, when he went 

 over to Europe, left his Monograph of the North 

 American Species of the Genus Carex (1825) 

 with Torrey to edit, but the " editing," from Tor- 

 rey's idea of that office, meant practically rewrit- 

 ing and extension, a duty so faithfully done that 

 von Schweinitz wanted it published under a joint 

 authorship. Ten or twelve years later, Torrey's 

 own elaborate Monograph of the other North 

 American Cyperaceae appeared, with an ap- 

 pended revision of the Carices. 



* John Lindley, botanist, 1799-1865. 



