184 Asa Gray. 



excursions after plants, fossils and minerals in New Jersey, 

 and in 1834, joined Dr. Torrey in botanizing, besides collect- 

 ing for him in the " pine barrens " of New Jersey and other 

 places. 



In the autumn of 1834, Gray accepted the position of assist- 

 ant to Dr. Torrey in the chemical laboratory of the Medical 

 School of New York. Botany was at first his study under 

 Dr. Torrey, but soon his work with Dr. Torrey ; and here 

 commenced their long-united labors and publications. From 

 the first he showed himself an adept in his methods of in- 

 vestigation and in his terse and mature style of scientific de- 

 scription. During the year 1834, while Torrey was preparing 

 his monograph on the North American sedges, the Cyperacese, 

 Gray had in hand an illustrated memoir on the genus Rhyn- 

 chospora, in which he doubled the number of known North 

 American species ; and another also on " New, rare, and other- 

 wise interesting plants of northern and western New York." 

 Both papers were read before the Lyceum of Natural History 

 of New York in December of that year (1831), and are pub- 

 lished in volume iii of the Annals of the Lyceum. Dr. Tor- 

 rey's monograph was read on the 8th of August, 1836 ; and 

 in it he says that the part on the genera Rhynchospora and 

 Ceratoschcenus was prepared by Dr. Gray, and that his de- 

 scriptions are so full that he gives only his list of the 

 species with such alterations as he has thought it advisable 

 to make, and some additional matter received since the pub- 

 lication of his paper. During 1834, 1835, two volumes of a 

 work on North American Graminese and Cyperacese were 

 issued by him, each containing a hundred species, and illus- 

 trated by dried specimens — now rare volumes, as only a small 

 edition was published through private subscription. The first 

 of these volumes, issued in February, 1834, only three years 

 after his graduation at the Fairfield Medical School, is dedi- 

 cated to his instructor and friend, Dr. James Hadley. The 

 preface acknowledges his indebtedness to Dr." Torrey and to 

 Dr. Henry P. Sartwell of Penn-Yan. Of the species described 

 as new in the work, the first one, No. 20, from specimens 

 collected by Dr. Sartwell, turned out to be Nuttal's Calama- 

 grostis oonfinis. But the next one, No. 28, Panicum xantho- 



