We look to you and to such as yourself, placed at well-furnished botanical centres, to do your share of conscientious work and to support right doctrines. So I may proceed to say that, upon the recognized principles since the adoption of the Candollian code, your name of Conioselinum bipinnatum, even if founded in fact, would be inadmissible and superfluous. By a corollary of the rule that priority of publication fixes the name, taken along with the fact a plant-name is of two parts, generic and specific, it follows that in any case, Conioselinum Canadense is the prior name for those who hold to the genus Conioselinum. I have laid down what I take to be the correct view as to this, in my “Structural Botany,” paragraph 794, where it is supported by the high authority of Bentham. I believe it is more and more acceded to by the most competent judges. There are those who make transpositions of divorced halves of plants name, and who, also make the law of priority mechanically override other equally valid laws, without regard to sense. To such the old law maxim of the elder De Candolle was applied; summum jus, summa injuria. If you like to adopt their ideas, you have at hand a still older, the very oldest, name, namely, Conioselinum Chinense, for I can certify that the plant we are concerned with is Athamantha Chinensis of Linnæus.
Very truly yours,
Asa Gray.
The next morning he seemed bright and well, but on going down to breakfast there came a slight shock in the right arm, which seemed, however, to pass off after he had rested. He managed to put up, for two friends in England, copies of his “Review of the Life of Darwin,” in the “Nation,” penciling the address so that it could be read. But a more severe shock returned in the early afternoon, and for a few moments a loss of articulation. That disappeared and the physician looked hopefully at the case, though recommending extreme quiet for mind and body. By Wednesday evening he seemed greatly improved, but the next morning the power of connected speech had gone. He could repeat words spoken to him, and could sometimes, apparently with long striving, connect the wish and the words, but for the most part he had lost the power of using the word he wanted, and could only express himself with signs, and his “eloquent left hand;” for the paralysis gradually increased until the whole right side was helpless. He lingered patiently in much weakness and at times suffering, until the 30th of January, 1888, when he gradually sank and quietly passed away at half-past seven in the evening.
Dr. Gray was buried in Mount Auburn, February 2, where a simple stone, bearing a cross, marks his grave, with his name and the dates 1810-1888.
APPENDIX.
A. DR. GRAY’S WILL.
Dr. Gray in his will left to the herbarium the proceeds of all his copyrights. His strong belief in the importance of a large and well-kept herbarium, as an establishment indispensable not only to the development of botanical studies at Harvard but also to the diffusion throughout the whole country of a knowledge of its flora, is shown by this bequest, and also by the active efforts he was constantly making in its behalf during his life and by the personal sacrifices to which he cheerfully submitted, that the herbarium might profit. Some of the difficulties in the development of his cherished project will already have suggested themselves to the reader of these pages. Others may be touched upon briefly here.
The reputation of Dr. Gray at home and abroad naturally served to draw to the herbarium large numbers of specimens, and the number was increased by the purchases which he contrived to make from time to time, either from his own scanty means, or from the occasional gifts of friends. The storing of his large and valuable collections in the small house in the garden where he lived was attended by so much danger of destruction by fire that he offered to present the collection to Harvard University, if a suitable building for its reception were provided; and, greatly to his relief, his herbarium was transferred in 1864 to the new fire-proof building, for whose construction twelve thousand dollars were given by his liberal friend, Mr. Nathaniel Thayer.
If Dr. Gray was able during his life to secure a building which at the time of its completion seemed ample for its purpose, he was less fortunate in his efforts to obtain a permanent fund for the maintenance of the collection. In 1864, the sum of $10,000-$12,000 was raised by friends for its support; but the interest of all the available funds was far short of what was necessary for the proper payment of a curator, for necessary purchases of plants and books and for running expenses. In fact, during his lifetime, running expenses could not have been met had it not been for occasional gifts from friends of the herbarium, including, for several years, a grant from the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture. The bequest in his will was an attempt on his part to replace, as far as he was able, the sums obtained by him annually from various sources during his life. But even with the amount derived from the copyrights, which must, of necessity, diminish in future years, the endowments of the herbarium are by no means sufficient to provide for its maintenance, even on the present scale. At the time of the transfer in 1864, the herbarium contained at least two hundred thousand specimens, and the library between two and three thousand works. Both have increased largely since that date.