THE BRYOLOGIST. 
VoL. XIII September— November 1910 Nos. 5-6 
A MEMOIR OF CAROLYN WILSON HARRIS. 
Bruce Fink. 
Mrs. Carolyn Wilson Harris was born in Springfield, Ohio, December 
8th, 1849, and died at Lakewood, New Jersey, May 3d, 1910. She was a 
life-long lover of nature and a devoted student of Botany, in whose death 
the Sullivant Moss Society has lost a good friend and an earnest worker. 
She took an active part in the botanical department of the Brooklyn Institute 
of Arts and Sciences, but it was through her collecting in northern New York 
and her writings that members of our Society came to know her best. 
About twenty-five years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Harris purchased a large 
tract of land for a summer home along Chilson Lake, Essex County, New 
York. During her first' summers in this delightful place, Mrs, Harris 
devoted her time to the study of the ferns and the flowering plants, but later 
her attention was given to the mosses, hepatics and lichens, especially the 
lichens. Those of us who know the great profusion and beauty of lichen 
growth in the northern tier of states from Maine across the continent to 
Washington understand why the attention of this lover of nature was drawn 
to these plants which abounded everywhere about her cottage and along the 
shores of the lake. 
Mrs Harris sent out from her attractive summer home many specimens 
of foliose and fruticose lichens to friends whom she tried to interest in the 
study of these plants and to various lichenists as well. The higher lichens 
of her region were well known to her, and she could call them by the names 
used in Tuckerman’s Manual, caring little for the modern controversies over 
priority of names or the tendency to splitting, which is the bane of amateur 
lovers of nature. 
To Mrs. Harris belongs the honor of being the first to interest The 
Bryologist in lichens. At least her articles were the first papers on lichens 
to appear in that journal, and she was the first to have charge of the lichen 
department. It was through her work that the present writer, like others 
interested in lichens, was first drawn to The Bryologist. Through mutual 
interest in lichens, the correspondence between Mrs. Harris and the writer 
began in 1901 and lasted until the time of her last illness. We learn from 
this correspondence that the lichens were given place in The Bryologist 
“ because members of the Moss Chapter were continually sending lichens — 
either calling them mosses or asking for information regarding them.” At 
the time when Mrs. Harris was writing her first article for The Bryologist, 
her letter contained the following; “Comparatively few people are inter- 
ested in these beautiful plants, and there is much work to be done, especially 
for beginners. I am writing a series of articles for The Bryologist for 
beginners, and find that in order to be really helpful, I must have specimens 
to describe from various localities.” This gives a clue to the incentive which 
led to the lichen department in The Bryologist. 
The July Bryologist was issued July 2, 1910. 
