13 



vicinity. His notes and collections, bequeathed to the 

 Middlesex Institute, have been freely drawn upon in the 

 present catalogue. 



Of the local botanists, however, who have passed on, 

 we are most indebted to Wm. Boott, who was born in 

 Boston in 1805, and died in the same city in 1887. "His 

 tastes and accomplishments in early and middle life" 

 writes Dr. Gray, "were literary, especially linguistic. 

 Probably he took up botany at the instigation of his brother 

 (Dr. Francis Boott, of London) , and with the design of 

 helping him to the Carices of this country, when Dr. Boott 

 began the study of this vast genus of which he became the 

 illustrator and highest authority ; and Wm. Boott, by a 

 kind of noblesse oblige, after his brother's death, devoted 

 himself to this study." He likewise studied critically the 

 Potamogetons, Isoetes, the Grasses and some tribes of 

 the Cyperacese. He was, moreover, a good general 

 botanist, with whom the zeal of the collector and the 

 uneasy spirit of original research abode to the last. A 

 rare combination of painstaking care and critical acumen 

 made his determinations authoritative, while the many 

 summers he spent in Medford gave him an extraordinary 

 acquaintance with the flora of the neighborhood. To the 

 preparation of this work, he contributed a list of Middlesex 

 plants, specimens from his herbarium, and his personal 

 services in the identification of doubtful species. Wm. 

 Boott has left in print a scanty record, but his herbarium, 

 bequeathed to Harvard University, gives a partial idea of 

 the scope of his labors. 



The number of trained observers now in the field is a 

 guarantee that the work of their predecessors will be 

 worthily continued. Discoveries in every class of plants 

 may confidently be expected. 



