444 Miscellaneous InteMigence. 



fitted to his nature and training, the working up of some of the 

 more difficult problems of North American Botany. His keen 

 observation and untiring industry, his long and varied training 

 and diversified experience peculiarly fitted him for the work 

 which had at last fallen to him. His intensely conscientious de- 

 votion to truth showed itself alike in his scientific work and in 

 his personal life and habits. 



After his report was finished the writer, who was then at work 

 on the Botany of California, induced him to finish and publish a 

 list of references he had begun, and later to finish the work on 

 the Botany of California which had been begun by others. 



The results of his botanical work during the last twenty-one 

 years of his life are published in too many papers to be given in 

 detail here. They may be summed up as follows: (1) The Re- 

 port of the Botany of the 40th Parallel; (2) Bibliographical In- 

 dex to North American Botany; (3) In cooperation with others, 

 The Botany of California; (4) Eighteen contributions, mostly 

 monographs, published in the proceedings of the American Acad- 

 emy of Arts and Sciences; (5) In cooperation with President 

 Coulter of Indiana, a Review of Gray's Manual ; (6) A Manual 

 of the Mosses of North America ; a work left unfinished by James 

 and Lesquereux ; (7) The Botanical definitions in the earlier part 

 of the Century Dictionary. Dr. Watson made only two consid- 

 erable botanical trips during these later years; one to the North- 

 west in connection with the forest work of the Census of 1880, 

 and a trip to Guatemala in 1S85. 



After the death of the lamented Asa Gray he took up the task 

 of completing the Synoptical Flora. For this, his long compan- 

 ionship with Dr. Gray eminently fitted him, but like his illustrious 

 predecessor he was not spared to fiuish the work. An attack of 

 the prevailing influenza followed by pneumonia and cardiac com- 

 plications brought his eminently useful and laborious life to an 

 end on March the 9th. 



Had he died twenty years after graduation the world would 

 have known little of him, and his classmates would have consid- 

 ered his life a failure. That long period was, however, years of 

 diversified preparation, which fitted him to bring to his chosen 

 work most thoroughly trained powers, and gave him a wide range 

 of knowledge drawn from the study of several sciences, and a per- 

 sonal knowledge of the aspects of the flora of many and widely 

 separated parts of the country. The reserve which characterized 

 him in college, and which lasted through life, left him all the 

 more free to prosecute his chosen work without the distractions 

 of society. But his reticence was not that of the misanthrope. 

 He endeared himself to all who were brought in close relations 

 with him. This was as strikingly shown in the trials and hard- 

 ships of camp-life, as among the inner circle of his friends in the 

 University, and in the few families that had the privilege of his 

 acquaintance. His death has left a gap among the American 

 systematic botanists which will not soon be filied. w. h. b. 



