SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



Sereno Watson.— On the 9th of March descriptive botany suffered 

 a great loss in the death of Sereno Watson, for many years the Curator of 

 the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, and since Dr. Gray's death, 

 the successor, and botanical executor of the kind-faced master. It was 

 hoped that the work which Dr. Gray left unfinished would be com- 

 pleted by Dr. Watson, who was so well prepared to do it, but we are 

 again left with the work incomplete. Torrey, Gray and Watson all 

 worked along the same lines, and may be said to have maintained the 

 same school of systematic botany. Had they completed the " Flora 

 of North America," the impress of their ideas would have remained 

 for all time. As it is, the fragments of the work will be gathered and 

 arranged by other hands, and the thoughts of other men will be 

 wrought into it. 



Born in 1826 in East Windsor Hill, Conn., Dr. Watson was at the 

 time of his death in his sixty-sixth year. He graduated from Yale in 

 1847, and subsequently taught school for a number of years, at one 

 time being a tutor in Iowa College, then located at Davenport, Iowa. 

 He studied medicine and was a practicing physician for a time in 

 Illinois, abandoning this for other occupations. In 1867, when forty 

 years of age he began his first botanical work in connection with the 

 United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, under 

 the charge of Clarence King. His report on botany in 1871 (vol. v. 

 of the series) is a worthy monument to his descriptive ability, and at 

 once gave him a prominent place in science. His labors since then 

 have been unremitting. The two magnificent volumes of the " Botany 

 of California " were largely his work. So too, the "Manual of Mosses'' 

 by Lesquereux and James, owes much to him. His " Bibliographical 

 Index to North American Botany " will for many years to come stand 

 as a monument to his industry, and he will long be remembered 

 gratefully by many a botanist who finds here at a glance reference 

 which would have taken many hours of searching. )f 



In 1873 he began his series of "Contributions to American Botany 

 by the publication of a paper in the May number of this journal 

 entitled " New Plants of Northern Arizona and the Region Adjacent. 

 The " separates" were designated as No. I. of the series of ^contribu- 

 tions. No. III. also appeared in this journal (November, 1873), treat- 



