Michael Schuck Bebb Y/as born on December 22, 1335, in Butler 

 County in southwestern Ohio where his grandfather, Edward Bebb, a 

 Welshman, had been one of the first whit a settlers in the fertile Miami 

 valley. His father was a teacher and then a successful lawyer in 

 Hamilton, the county town to which the family removed in 1855, and in 

 1346 was electee governor of Ohio. The well-kept garden surrounding 

 the Bebb mansion in Hamilton was stocked with flowering plants and 

 fruit trees, and here, while still a boy, the future botanist acquired 

 his first knowledge of plants ana, without the aid of a text-book, 

 learned with effort the rudiments of the science from a copy of Tor- 

 rey's report upon the Flora of New York which haa been sent to his 

 father with other New York State reports Dy a political friend. In 

 1350 the family moved to a large tract of land which Governor Bebb had 

 purchased in the Rocky River valley in northern Illinois, near the 

 present town of Fountainaale. Mr. Bebb's love of botany was then 

 increased by the acquisition of a few more botanical books and by an 

 acquaintance with Br. George Vasey which began five or six years later, 

 and was still farther stimulated by a visit to New England where he 

 associated with several men of science. During the War of Secession 

 he served the Government in Washington, and then, returning to Illi- 

 nois, purchased the paternal homestead at Fountaindale and devoted 

 himself to botany and especially to the study of Willows. The lar- 

 gest and most complete collection of these plants which has ever been 

 maue in the United States was planted at this time by Mr. Bebb but, 



