THE BRYOLOGIST 
Vol. XXI 
November, 1918 
A REMINISCENCE OF THE LATE DR. EMIL LEVIER 
Wm. Edw. Nicholson 
There must be many bryologists on both sides of the Atlantic who cherish 
pleasant memories of the genial botanist of Florence and Bagni di Bormio, the 
late Dr. Emil Levier. Florence, the very name of which suggests flowers, and 
how appropriately no one who has seen it in April can deny, has produced many 
botanists, especially in the field of Bryology, particularly noteworthy being 
Miche.li and Raddi, whose friends have made such a mark on the generic names 
of the frondose hepatics. 
I had been in correspondence with Dr. Levier for many years, but it was 
not until May, 1910, when I was passing through Florence on my return from 
a short holiday in southern Italy, that I had an opportunity of meeting him. 
I was only staying for one night in Florence, and shortly after my arrival I 
called at 16 Via Jacopo da Diacetto, the address which had long been familiar 
to me, and received a most cprdial welcome from Dr. and Mme. Levier, whom 
I found in their little garden, in the center of which grew a very fine specimen 
of the palmetto, Chamaerpps humilis., seven or eight feet high. In another 
part of the garden was a large autumn flowering species of Clematis sent to Dr. 
Levier by Mr. W. Gottan from Mussoorie (N. W. Himalaya), nom fatidique, 
as he playfully said apropos of the wealth of mosses found there. They most 
hospitably invited me that evening to dinner, which we had in a delightful room 
panelled with carved cinque-cento oak, which I understood had been collected 
by Dr. Levier’s uncle. Mme. Levier had been in England, where she had been 
very much struck by the magnificent trees in some of the private parks, where, 
indeed, the trees do compare rather favorably with the somewhat stunted speci- 
mens which, for the most part, one sees in Italy. 
Dr. Levier was very far from well at the time of my visit, as he was suffering 
from heart trouble which he attributed largely to indiscretion in smoking. His 
herbarium, of which he showed me several sheets, among which I remember 
some particularly fine ones of Schistocheila appendiculata (Hook.) Dum. and 
a species of Barbella, was magnificently mounted, everything being on large 
separate sheets and in most cases very amply represented. The method was 
laborious, entailing more time and labor than most of us can afford, and on his 
own admission had cost him many thousands of hours. He expressed great 
dislike of the practice of mounting mosses and hepatics in envelopes, which, 
he maintained, were not calculated to preserve them so well as the open sheets; 
and he illustrated this by the fact that he had found the specimens of Ricpiq 
The September number of The Bryologist was published December 7, 1918. 
