1 82 SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



ally employed by the United States Agricultural 

 Department to arrange the specimens sent in by 

 governmental explorations which had accumu- 

 lated at the Smithsonian. This period included 

 a visit to Kew, England, and marked the begin- 

 ning of a lasting friendship with Sir Joseph 

 Hooker. He doubtless visited his birthplace in 

 Gloucester and realized the vastness of the Amer- 

 ican wilderness and the grandeur of the Cali- 

 fornian mountains, as contrasted with the small- 

 ness, but the quiet beauty, of his own Malvern 

 Hills. 



His pleasantest trip might well have been that 

 in 1880, when, as special agent of the United 

 States Forestry Department, he went with George 

 Engelmann and Professor Sargent on an expedi- 

 tion to the valley of the Columbia and the far 

 Northwest. Wintering in California, he spent 

 the following year in that state, making numerous 

 collecting excursions north and south, including 

 a trip to the Yosemite in June. 



Various other trips followed, interspersed with 

 much cataloguing and writing; but in 1884 he 

 visited England and Kew again, as well as his 

 botanical friends on the Continent. 



"The summer of 1886 he spent partly with 

 friends in Wisconsin, partly in the quiet enjoy- 

 ment of his Iowa home. But even when resting, 

 his mind did not rest — his wonderfully volumi- 

 nous correspondence went on, and the microscope 



