DR. ELMER D. MERRILL, 1876-1956 
Last year marked the passing of the outstand- 
ing bibliographer of the Pacific area, Dr. E. D. 
Merrill, botanist, bibliographer, and adminis- 
trator; man of prodigious energy, broad vision, 
and deep understanding of problems and people; 
and a valued friend. 
I wish here to pay tribute to the memory of 
the man to whom we owe so much. Extracts 
from his contributions to science were repub- 
lished with subsidiary material in Chronica 
Botanica 1 at a time when he could still appre- 
ciate the honor. His autobiography of his 
Philippine and California days was published in 
the Asa Gray Bulletin. 2 Thus most of the essen- 
tial facts concerning this leader and builder 
need no further elaboration. 
Before December, 1928 Dr. Merrill was to me 
just the great man who had been Director of 
the Bureau of Science in Manila and who had 
developed Philippine botany and the great 
herbarium in the capital of those islands. He 
was the one who by then had undertaken the 
study of the flora of Hainan, and had stimulated 
the study of botany in many institutions in 
China, especially by the Chinese themselves. To 
him had gone all collections made at Lingnan 
University, Canton, China, where I had taught 
from 1922 to 1926. He was dean of the Agri- 
cultural College of the University of California 
in June 1928, when I became an aide in the 
Division of Plants, U.S. National Herbarium, 
Smithsonian Institution. I was employed to 
bring order out of the large and partly worked 
Chinese and other Asiatic collections. Thus I 
joined the ranks of the very small number of 
workers on the botany of China. Dr. Merrill 
was out front, I far in the rear. However, on 
a trip to Washington he came around to "look 
me over.” With his characteristically direct 
^errilleana; a selection from the general writings of Elmer 
Drew Merrill, Sc.D., LL.D. Chronica Botanica 10(3/4): 
131-393. 6 Ulus. 1946. 
2 E. D. Merrill — Autobiographical: Early years, the Philip- 
pines, ^Cahfornia. Asa Gray Bulletin N. S. 2(3/4) : 335-370. 
question, ”What are you doing about the liter- 
ature?”, I started with almost no previous ex- 
perience in this field to become a bibliographer. 
A year later we became collaborators in the 
"Bibliography of Eastern Asiatic Botany,” 
which left the press nearly ten years later. My 
association with Dr. Merrill continued until 
his death. 
Dr. Merrill’s two most outstanding charac- 
teristics were breadth of vision and limitless 
capacity for work. He began in Manila with 
nothing but his own strong qualities. Before 
that field was well under way he had reached 
out to small but important Amboina in the 
East Indies, unknown Borneo, American pos- 
sessions in the Pacific Islands, notably Guam, 
and then Hainan Island and China. His in- 
fluence was felt in institutions in Europe, 
America, and Asia. To some he is a symbol of 
over-extension, leaving a trail of unfinished 
works behind him. But he left the polish and 
fine points to others who could not see the need 
for plowing widely if not deeply, in other fields 
related to his own. Indeed he was extended, yet 
he knew this limitation. "Here it is,” he said, 
"as far as I can do it with my limited time and 
resources. Let others pick up from here.” So 
ran his philosophy. Then he turned to other 
things, leaving behind him, it is true, great 
collections named merely "by sight,” but col- 
lections actually made in the first place simply 
because people knew that Merrill would name 
them. And because of his determining of these 
vast collections they were placed where the 
plodding taxonomists could get them and polish 
them. Nor did he stop there, but continued on, 
stimulating, directing and sometimes working 
with others on these great collections, as one 
can see by perusing his bibliography and noting 
the joint authorships. Many are the institutions 
in whose history Merrill’s name needs major 
mention for his direct and indirect influence 
upon their growth. 
Merrill’s breadth of vision made him see the 
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