HERMANN EDWARD HASSE LICHENIST 
Bruce Fink 
With the passing of Doctor Hasse, October 15, 1915, botanical 
science lost the man who has added, it seems, the largest number 
of lichens to our North American flora, through his own collect- 
ing, since the days of Tuckerman. In a letter to the present 
writer, in 1905, Doctor Hasse said, referring to a mention of his 
work, “ As to the very kind mention you have made of my very 
unworthy self in the historical part of your paper, I must say 
that I can scarcely deserve so much credit as you have awarded 
me. It has been almost entirely a matter of muscle and luck 
rather than brains in collecting species.” However, we must 
still insist that the keen observation and the great pains and zeal 
shown in collecting so many rare things as did the late Califor- 
nian lichenist involve much more than “ muscle and luck.” This 
is especially true since he entered the work after the conspicuous 
species had been named, and his new species were almost entirely 
obscure ones. But again we may call attention to the fact that 
Doctor Hasse’s best work was accomplished, as will be seen, 
after the date at which he wrote the above statement. 
The present writer began with Doctor Hasse, soon after his 
first paper on lichens appeared in 1895, a correspondence which 
extended through two decades. Doctor Hasse was an isolated 
worker and was more communicative by letter than are most 
botanists. Thus it comes that through this correspondence of 
twenty years, we have before us the main facts regarding the life 
of the subject of our sketch. He wrote in one letter of his birth 
in Freiburg, Germany, in 1836, and of his migration to America 
at nine years of age. Ten years later he began to work for “a 
druggist, a thorough chemist and botanist, to whose instruction,” 
he says he owed “the predilection for the latter science.” He 
began the study of medicine in St. Louis in 1856, but went to 
Europe the following year, where he continued the study for four 
years, mainly at Leipzig, with short periods of study at Prague 
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