XVI 



In 1836 Dr. Gray was appointed Botanist to Commodore Wilkes's 

 voyage of exploration in the Pacific and Antarctic regions ; but after 

 experiencing innumerable delaj^s, and uncertainties as to the manage- 

 ment of the expedition, and as to his own position in it, he withdrew 

 from the enterprise. It is idle to speculate on the loss to science thus 

 incurred. It may reasonably be assumed, however, that if science 

 lost much in the form of invaluable observations, original researches, 

 and copious collections, America gained much by the retention of 

 Gray's personal influence, his teaching, and the elaboration of its 

 flora. 



Settling in New York, Gray now devoted his whole energies in 

 conjunction with Torrey to ' The Flora of North America,' of which 

 the first parts appeared in 1838, and the last that have been published 

 very shortly before his decease. Torrey was the projector of the work, 

 but even from the first the lion's share fell to Gray, who is prac- 

 tically its sole author. To put briefly the amount of labour involved 

 in Gray's systematic and descriptive publications on the North 

 American Flora, it may be stated that they may embrace in one form 

 or another a great proportion of the 10,000 or 11,000 species that the 

 continent possesses. Of these more than half are so carefully and 

 methodically described in the volumes of the Flora that have appeared, 

 that there is perhaps no instance of a species being misplaced as to 

 genus, and in few could a better grouping of species into subordinate 

 divisions be suggested. The remainder are described in more or less 

 detail in innumerable papers, in answer to demands for immediate 

 publication in the ' Reports of Government Expeditions,' or in the 

 works of travellers and collectors. These scattered publications would, 

 as it was hoped by the author, have accelerated the pace of the great 

 work ; but the contrary was the result, and the prospects of the com- 

 pletion of the Flora are far distant, if existent. 



Of Gray's numerous o/ther works four are especially noteworthy : 

 his ' Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States,' of which 

 it is justly written by an eminent American author, that the botanist 

 has yet to be born who could give a more clear, accurate, and com- 

 pact account of the flora of a country ; the ' Genera Florae Americas 

 Borealis Orientalis illustrata,' a work designed to illustrate and 

 describe the morphology, affinities, and distribution of plants in the 

 area indicated, but discontinued after the first two volumes ; the 

 ' Botany of Commodore Wilkes's South Pacific Exploring Expedi- 

 tion,' of which a quarto volume, with a superb atlas of plates, was 

 published, when the withdrawal of funds arrested its further pro- 

 gress ; lastly, an essay on the flora of Japan, which, in point of 



their way -where botany as botany could not have gained an entrance, and they set 

 in motion a current which moved in the general direction of a higher science with a 

 force that can hardly be estimated." 



