Asa Gray. 187 



interest to the young American, because it first systematically 

 displayed the discoveries of David Douglas, of Drummond, 

 Richardson, and other English travelers in North America. 

 At Glasgow, too, was laid the foundation for his lifelong friend- 

 ship with the younger Hooker, then a medical student seven 

 years his junior, but destined to become the explorer of New 

 Zealand and Antarctic floras, the intrepid Himalaya traveler, 

 the associate of George Bentham in the authorship of the 

 " Genera Plantarum," a president of the Royal Society, and, like 

 his father, the director of the Royal Gardens at Kew. At 

 Edinburgh he saw Greville, the famous cryptogamist ; while in 

 London, Francis Boott, an American long resident in England, 

 the author of the classical history of the genus " Carex," and at 

 that time Secretary of the Linnean Society, opened to him every 

 botanical door. Here he saw Robert Brown, then the chief 

 botanical figure in Europe, with the exception, perhaps, of De 

 Candolle ; and Menzies, who fifty years before had sailed as 

 naturalist with Vancouver on his great voyage of discovery ; 

 and Lambert, the author of the sumptuous history of the genus 

 " Pinus, " in whose hospitable dining-room were stored the plants 

 upon which Pursh had based his North American Flora. Here, 

 too, he met Bentham and Lindley and Bauer, and all the other 

 workers in his scientific field. 



"A visit to Paris brought him the acquaintance of the group 

 of distinguished botanists then living at the French capital : P. 

 Barker Webb, a writer upon the botany of the Canaries ; the 

 Baron Delessert, Achille Richard, whose father had written the 

 Flora of Michaux ; Mirbel, already old, but still actively engaged 

 in investigations upon vegetable anatomy; Spach; Decaisne, then 

 a young aide naturaliste at the Jardin des Plantes, of which he 

 was afterward to become the distinguished Director ; Auguste 

 St. Hilaire, the naturalist of the Duke of Luxembourg's expe- 

 dition to Brazil, and at that time in the full enjoyment of a 

 great reputation earned by his works upon the Brazilian flora ; 

 Jacques Gay; Gaudichaud, the naturalist of the voyage of 

 L'Uranie and La Physicienne ; the young Swiss botanist, Ed- 

 mond Boissier, the Spanish traveler, and, later, one of the most 

 important contributors to systematic botany in his classical " Flora 

 Orientalis ; " Adrien de Jussieu, grand-nephew of Bernard, and 



