— 14 — 



KARL QUSTAV LinPRICHT. 



By John M. Holzinger. 



Professor Karl Gustav Limpricht, principal of the Evangelical High 

 School in Breslau, Germany, died on October 20, [902, after a protracted ill- 

 ness. He was born July 11, 1834, and had reached the age of 68 years. 



In the death of this man Bryology has lost one of the ablest, most 

 scholarly and conscientious workers of his time; one who was as modest as 

 able. Publishing little if anything in the current bryological journals of his 

 time, he quietly and unostentatiously spent the best part of the past 20 

 years in elaborating his Laubmoose. After the completion of his Mossflora 

 of Silesia he had so fully gained the confidence of his contemporaries that 

 he was selected to contribute to Rabenhorsfs Cry ptog amejijlor a, the manu- 

 script for the Hepaticae and Musci of Germany. The Musci have appeared 

 in parts under the title Lattbinoose Deutchlaftd' s, OestreicK s, und der 

 Schweiz. The first volume, consisting of 834 pages, with 533 illustrative 

 drawings, was completed in November, 1889, after five years of arduous labor. 

 It goes as far as Hedwigieae. The second volume, consisting of 853 pages, 

 with 867 drawings, was completed in June, 1895. It includes Orthotrichaceos 

 to Leskeaceae. Each of these volumes was issued in 13 parts, each of the 

 separate parts appearing immediately after its completion. Of the third 

 volume, which appears to be planned to have the same number of parts, 11 

 have so far appeared. Most of parts 10 and 11 record new stations for old 

 species and species described as new since 1885. According to the plan of 

 the author there will be an alphabetical index including synomyms at the 

 conclusion of the entire work. Volumes i and 2 are also indexed separately. 



After the preface of four pages, in the first volume, the author devotes 85 

 pages to the discussion of the development and structure of the moss plant 

 and its organs, to geographical distribution, the collecting and study of 

 mosses, and treats briefly of the systems of classification proposed in later 

 years. This is a clear concise, and satisfactory treatment helpful to the 

 systematic student. 



In the execution of the body of his monumental work the author has set 

 for himself a standard to which he has adhered with a steadfastness and a 

 devotion undiminished to the last. After outlining briefly the degrees of 

 excellence attempted in previous manuals, in which a distinct progressive 

 movement is traced commensurate with the perfection and increased availa- 

 bility of the compound microscope, he says: " As early as 40 years ago 

 Karl Mueller, at a time when the marks of affinity of mosses were found 

 entirely in the external forms of organs, gave a new direction to systematic 

 bryology by introducing leaf areolaiion into the sphere of observation, a 

 tendency which will reach its closing climax in the utilization of the sum 

 total of anatomical characters, both of the vegetative and reproductive or- 

 gans. If, then, every description furnishes also physiological, biological, his- 

 torical and bryo-geographical data, theti it approaches the ideal in that it sets 

 forth in brief form all that is known about the object under consideration. 



