Correspondence of Asa Gray and G. W. Clinton
Edited by P. M. Eckel
Res Botanica
Missouri Botanical Garden
October 13, 2005
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The Correspondence of

Asa Gray (1810-1888) and

George William Clinton (1807‑1885)

 

1865

 


 

Vol 1. (22) [I 206]

 

Cambridge. May 31, 1865

 

My dear Clinton

 

"[Hestia" = [ulitmia], as the fruit will show.

 

[Thus] of the 23d mentioning the pretty Collinsia verna, puts me up to say, that I hope you will pick and send me all the ripe seed you can lay hold of. By Gardener's folly we have failed to secure it here, as we might, so I hope you may to some extent make up our short comings, if the plant abounds where you find it. And as to the Cyperaceae, the great hope of the [season] is that you will rediscover & make plenty of fine specimens of Scirpus Clintonii.

 

I am very sorry to hear you have been sick. Hope you're perfectly well again and rejoicing over the full end ‑ & the very wretched end ‑ of the rebellion.

 

Mrs. Gray sends her very best regards.

 

Ever yours cordially

 

A. Gray

 

Recd. June 3

 

[on the reverse side in apparently different handwriting:] "Meeting of the Council at Dr. Gary's, May 27, 1865; Bes... The President ‑ Secretaries, Revd. D. Peabody."

 

"Let Dr. [Day] provide a book for recording [   ] Letters & [  ] received, not .... dispensing with the record ... Secretary's book."

 


 

Gray appears to have used "post consumer" paper for some of his letters, as was the custom of the times, to vigorously pursue thrift. A voluminous correspondence made a heavy toll on the paper budget.

 

The end of the rebellion is the Civil War. Of the many "messes" of the final year of the war (1865), Gray could have been referring to the capture  and death of John Wilkes Booth on April 26. All throughout the month the Confederate forces were surrendering and disbanding amid ongoing skirmishes. The next day the tragic explosion on the Sultana occurred as it transported paroled Federal soldiers up the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, men who had been imprisoned in Confederate prison camps and were going home. The minimum number of soldiers killed in this catastrophe was put at 1238. The coffin containing the body of Abraham Lincoln was viewed by 50,000 people in Cleveland, Ohio. He would be buried at Springfield, Illinois on May 4. Toward the end of May the Grand Armies of the Republic passed last full review in Washington, D. C., the regiments filling the streets before dispersing for home. By the first of June, the war was over. The peace had begun and with it Reconstruction.

 

It is with this peace that those portions of Clinton's correspondence available today begins, although there is evidence from his journal and other letters that correspondence had been going on for decades earlier. These earlier letters which Clinton, no doubt, assembled into volumes, are not in the research library of the Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York.

 

The Scirpus Clintonii, described by Gray in 1864, delighted Clinton who avidly sought more of it from the type locality around Buffalo, New York. In the Fifth edition of Gray's Manual of Botany, 1867, this species is listed (p. 561) as "Rather dry plains, New York, Jefferson Co., Dr. Crawe; near Buffalo, G. W. Clinton. June."

 

According to Clinton's collecting journal, as early as 1862 Clinton was sending field collections to Gray, who was working on the Fifth edition of his manual and desired specimens from a number of people who lived in the different regions of the country the Manual covered. Detailed morphological, distributional knowledge, the flowering and fruiting times of many American plants was not known nor their general and local abundance recorded. Clinton was sending Gray specimens of Cuscuta gronovii. On September 27 of 1862, he sent seeds of Astragalus canadensis from Strawberry Island, an island in the middle of the upper Niagara River, to Gray. Gray would write back determinations and Clinton would carefully preserve the authenticated specimen as part of the future Clinton Herbarium of the new Buffalo Society of Natural  Sciences.

 

Gray appeared to be interested in Ribes, Sambucus, Equisetums, Cerastium, the bulbs of Erythronium albidum, some to plant in the gardens to which Gray referred in the letter above.

 

On August 11, 1862, Clinton found Scirpus Clintonii "On the Plains near the quarries ..." but Gray wrote back that it was Scirpus Torreyi instead.

 

Gray wrote a letter of introduction for the Reverend James Fowler, of Richibucto, Kent Co., New Brunswick, of British Canada to meet Clinton, and an intimate correspondence and friendship began on July 4, 1864. In September Clinton wrote in his journal "Looked at Silliman's Journal. Gray is out with Scirpus Clintonii."

 

In 1865, Clinton was invited by Gray for a visit to Cambridge when he, Clinton, visited Albany, New York. 'I went to Old Cambridge Station, & a walk of 3/4 m. brought me to Prof. Gray's house in Garden St. where I was most kindly received & where I remained until Thursday." Gray, a devout man, did not work on Sundays. :

 

Jan. 15. Went to the Episcopal Church in the morning, no work at Grays.  Like a true [man], he has family prayer in the morning, & says grace.' Jan. 16. 'During my stay, Gray examined, partially, a small packet I brought him. I left with him a very small packet for Mr. Boott. Gray gave me T. & G.'s N. Amn. Flora in sheets, a number of his works, & a large number of specimens. Examined his paper, herbarium cases, mode of pressing & gluing on specimens, &c. One day he set his workwoman at work, that I might see the process of gluing.

 

On Monday, worked principally with Gray. On Tuesday, with Mr. Wright, visited the Cambridge Museum, & had pleasant talks with the assistants, & got their cards, in order to put our people in communication with them. Agassiz absent. The names are ‑ John G. Anthony, Box 703, P.O. Cambridge Conchology P.R. Uhler. Mus. of Comp. Zool., Cambridge, Insects.  N. S. Shaler, Ass't in Palaeontology, Mus. of C. Z. &c."

 

Clinton learned that he was not the only boarder at Gray's house,  at an earlier time:   "Nuttall boarded in this house. He must have been odd. He occupied Gray's room & more above. He was afraid of a w..., had a hole cut in the ceiling of a closet, & went to the room above by ladder, and had a private way out of the house, & his food was passed into him through a window in the closet. He had a fine estate, in England, left to him, in condition that he should not be absent from it more than 3 months in a year, so he took the last 3 months of one year & the first 3 of the next for his rambles.'

 

In an annotation by Jane Loring Gray in her editorial treatment of the Letters of Asa Gray, (The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1894 Vol. II p. 326)

she wrote the following: [At Cambridge, Mass.] "The garden was laid out by Dr. Peck in 1801, and the house built for him was finished in 1810. Mr. Nuttall, the botanist and ornithologist, who boarded in it while giving instruction in botany, left some curious traces behind him. He was very shy of intercourse with his fellows, and having for his study the southeast room, and the one above for his bedroom, put in a trap-door in the floor of an upper connecting closet, and so by a ladder could pass between his rooms without the chance of being met in the passage or on the stairs. A flap hinged and buttoned in the door between the lower closet and the kitchen allowed his meals to be set in on a tray without the chance of his being seen. A window he cut down into an outer door, and with a small gate in the board fence surrounding the garden, of which he alone had the key, he could pass in and out safe from encountering any human being."

 

It may be that Nuttall's wonderful behavior was a favorite topic to be shared with Gray's guests. It seems odd for Nuttall to wish to escape human beings yet still be willing to "give instruction." The illegible word in Clinton's manuscript is unfortunate.

 

 

 


Vol. 1.(25) [I 203]

 

Cambridge,  June 5 [1865]

 

Dear Clinton

 

It will be time, when you receive this, to collect the Scirpus Clintonii, a great bit of it, some of it 10 days later, also. Collinsia verna I chiefly want seeds of, sent fresh when quite ripe.

 

I am arranging to have a bit of Carices sent you.

 

Ever Yours

 

A. Gray

 

Recd. June 7, Wrote him 9th

 

The Carices were to come from Edward Tuckerman to Clinton and derived from the "Herbarium of the late Dr. Boott (Tuckerman Vol.1(27). See also Tuckerman's letter of June 15, 1865 (Vol.1(45) where Elihu Hall of Athens, Illinois, was to receive the leavings after Clinton's selection.

 


 

On June 7th, Wednesday, Clinton went "Into the woods at Smoke's Creek, gathered Viola striata, a little, Poa sylvestris & Poa alsodes, Carex pubescens, and some (scarcely ripe) seed of Collinsia verna (mailed it to Gray) and some mosses." Some of the graminoids appear in Gray's next letter:

 

Vol. 1.(48) [I 178]

 

Cambridge June 17, 1865

 

Dear Clinton

 

At length I have a moment or two, and I have carefully examined the Grasses in your letter, and I pronounce one to be alsodes and the other sylvestris, as you have named them. I rely on you for good herbarium specimens of both, at the end of the season.

 

Prunus virg[iniana] abnormal, is just as P. Americana delights to be, i.e. ovary puffed up, I never could trace it to any work of insects.

 

I dare say if you send me a suite of forms of Festuca nutans, I shall deposit them all in the herbarium ‑ ugly dog though he be.

 

Pray what was the trouble with your foot? I hope it is now quite right.

 

I rejoice in the seeds of Collinsia verna! Don't put yourself out in gathering more ‑ tho' more will be welcome.

 

Polygonatum: the big one is just P. giganteum as I take it.

 

I have cultivated it with it, in our poor soil is only 1 1/2 " high. The leaves are more clasping [  ]  [  ]  base than the smaller one, which we also have, but I have found no other difference. 

 

Scirpus Clintonii!

 

It did come near giving us the slip, but we have five, [with?] some fruit drops. Many thanks for the nice supply.

 

I leave you to post some specimens to Engelmann, also, if you please, to [Cild...] and any of your correspondents. I gave it to Torrey, & to our friends abroad.

 

Carex, No. 1. "When I look at it, I think of C. granularis" also, and I can't think it anything else. Why should you.

 

No. 2. C. platyphylla ‑ fine. Goes to herbarium

 

C. oederi is apt to act so.

 

Very cordially yours,

 

Asa Gray

 

Recd. June 20.

 


 

Vol. 1. 48. Asa Gray  [June, 1865]

 

[Note I 177 torn from an envelope associated with No. 48]

 

Overlooked Carices no.

 

3. = platyphylla, var.

 

4. = pallescens

 

A. G.

 

Evening.

 

Look out! I find among your specimens S. plantifolius & S. clintonii. Must revise them by daylight. Look for some with long flat leaves & pointed scales!

 

A. G.

 


 

Carex granularis Muhl. Meadow Sedge

 

Carex Oederi var. pumila (Cos. & Germ.) Fern. = C. viridula Michx., the Green Sedge, is rare in western New York (Zander & Pierce, 1979). Carex platyphylla Carey, Broad‑leaved Sedge Collinsia verna, Nutt. Blue‑eyed Mary, rare in western New York (Zander & Pierce, 1979).

 

Festuca nutans (of authors) = F. obtusa Biehler, Nodding Fescue (note how its common name reflects the earlier technical name) Poa alsodes, Gray.

 

Poa sylvestris, Gray.

Polygonatum giganteum A. Dietr.ex Otto & Dietr. = P. biflorum (Walt.) Ell.

 

The smaller Polygonatum is P. pubescens (Willd.) Pursh., one the Great, the other the Small Solomon's‑seal; Prunus americana Marsh. Wild Plum

 

Prunus virginiana l. Choke Cherry

 

Scirpus Clintonii Gray, Clinton's Club‑rush: see note next letter

 

In Clinton's journal for June 3  Clinton wrote: 'The Big Polygonatum, with opposite leaves, not yet in flower, ought to be examined. It seems different from the common, big one, the giganteum of Dietrich, according to Day [Gray writes = giganteum]." Clinton also wrote: "Crossing to the [Buffalo] Creek, found a clump of Prunus Virginiana, with monstrous fruit, like the P. Americana of Grand Island, took specimen, and, in the evening, mailed one to Gray.' He continues to worry about his Polygonatum: 'The big, opposite leaved, Polygonatum, not yet in flower along the Hydraulic Canal, but took 2 specimens, intending one for Gray, presume he will call it giganteum, though its aspect be different.'

 

Clinton first made contact with Dr. George Engelman of St. Louis by a letter on March 15, 1862 (MO archives) a few months after the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences was organized, and when Clinton was its president. He was invited to contact Engelmann by his friend Robert Buchanan of Cincinatti, who furnished "the names of a few gentlemen of the West whom he regards as able and willing to aid us by correspondence and exchanges, and specifies yourself among them." Engelmann was collaborating with Asa Gray in revising the next edition of the Manual. He had worked earlier with Gray and John Torrey on two railway reports sponsored by the United States government, treating the Cactaceae. He provided the treatments of Callitriche, Cuscuta, Euphorbia, Juncus, Isoetes, Pinus, and Sagittaria to the Fifth edition of Gray's Manual of 1867 and Clinton regularly sent specimens from these genera to St. Louis.

 


 

Vol. 1. (52) [I 173]

 

Cambridge Monday 20 June [1865]

 

Dear Clinton

 

I have looked over the specimens, and find 3 of them S. planifolius ‑ I send back two of them.

 

The rest all S. Clintonii but the leaf is longer than the character allows ‑ sometimes little shorter than the culm.

 

You may know the planifolius by the cuspidate scales, let alone the leaf. Do the two grow mixed together? Pray do not find any intermediates. If there are any more, Nature, as she completes her selection will soon annihilate them, and you will be quite justified in helping her.

 

Look sharp among them before they quite pass by.

 

Ever yours

 

A. Gray

 

Recd. June 21 & ans. [ditto]

 


 

An interesting reference to Nature's selection in view of Darwin's controversy. Gray also may be referring to the passing of the season? rather than the extinction of the intermediate forms. I rather hope he is not encouraging Clinton to remove the evidence that the plant named for his correspondent is actually only a variant of Scirpus planifolius. Note that both are rare and probably extirpated in western New York (see below.) The differences, according to Gray's sixth edition, are not striking. The range of S. verecundus is "New England to Delaware, west to western N.Y. and Penn."

 

Scirpus Clintonii Gray, Clinton's Club‑rush, is sadly rare and probably eliminated through habitat destruction in western New York and adjacent Ontario (Zander & Pierce, 1979). In Gray's sixth edition, 1889, the locality is given as "Rather dry plains, N.Y. June."

 

Scirpus planifolius Muhl. = S. verecundus Fern. Wood Club‑rush, listed as rare and probably extirpated in western New York (Zander & Pierce, 1979).

 

Clinton wrote in his journal for June 20: 'In a letter from Gray, he says that, some Scirpus planifolius is mixed with Scirpus Clintonii.'

 


 

Vol. 1. (63) [I 162]

 

Cambridge 20 June 1865

 

My dear Clinton

 

How thoughtlessly cruel I have been to urge you to rush off for Collinsia etc. with such a lame foot. Through ignorance I did it. With all your happy contrivances and nice fixtures, I advise you to be careful, and send younger people to botanize, as I do.

 

I don't believe "Scirpus Clintonii is a goner" yet. You are so lucky as to find both; that's all. The long flat leaves and the pointed scales go uniformly together thus far. The onus probandi rests on the doubter. We will hold fast yet. 

 

A few more such cases will go near to convert you to Darwinism.

 

Just look over your stock and see if you find any intermediates. Did you collect all in one place?

 

Ever Yours

 

A. Gray

 


 

Onus probandi, as may be guessed, means the burden of proof, or, literally, the burden of proving. The onus lies with the person making a charge on whom is the expectation of proof of assertion. Gray enjoyed ragging Clinton on Clinton's prowess as a lawyer and judge.

 


 

28th June [same sheet]

 

Some things can be done, ‑ and you have done it. It is Scirpus caespitosus. 

 

You have only to furnish me ‑ in due time ‑ in your annual contribution ‑ some fair specimens for the herbarium. Fear what you send in a wisp in letter are not comely in herbarium.

 

You are a rare Scirpus‑hunter!

 

Why don't you" [...] & call" Juniperus Virginiana var. humilis"  a species? I should agree with you, ‑ now that Dr. Robbins has pointed out to me a good character ‑ the recurved fruit ‑ and that it is the J. Sabina of the Old World! For not submitting you are fined one specimen.

 

Well, I see by yours of the 26? that you are securing your courage & will hold fast to S. Clintonii. That is right.

 

Carices. save the mark !

 

1. C. siccata, I suppose?

 

3. C. siccata?, too poor.

 

2. C. stellulata

 

4. C. teretiuscula, var. prairiea Dewey 

 

5. gynocrates.

 

A good haul.

 

Ever Yours

 

A. Gray

 

Recd. June 30 & ansd.

 


 

Carex gynocrates Wormsk, Northern Bog Sedge, is rare in western New York. Carex siccata Dewey, Dry‑spiked Sedge is rare in western New York. Carex stellulata Good. = C. muricata L., Prickly Sedge. Carex teretiuscula var. major Koch = C. diandra Schrank, Lesser Panicled Sedge p. 575 Carex prairiea Dew. is considered a synonym of var. major in the 5th edition.

 

Scirpus caespitosus L. Tufted Club‑rush is rare in western New York.

 


 

Vol. 1. (71) [I 151]

 

Buffalo, June 29, 1865. [Clinton's handwriting] My dear Gray:

 

Yesterday I went after Poa alsodes. He has gone up. Poa sylvestris ready, if not quite, do. [ditto].

 

The inclosed Poa has bothered me very much. I mean the slender, small & delicate form that grows in the woods, is common & pretty. The coarser one grows here & there in the openings, & on the edges of the woods in the banks of streams. I also inclose one specimen of the Poa compressa of our meadows. Now I believe they are all Poa compressa, but I want your say so as to the delicate woodland one.

 

Yours ever

 

G. W. Clinton

 

[lower corner, Prof. A. Gray]

 

[written by Gray on this letter and presumably returned: "Well, we won't mind calling them all P. compressa. A. G."]

 


 

[I 152]

July 6 [Gray's handwriting]

 

Juniperus Sabina, Linn. Europea. Siberia. [& ...]

 

Is in Hook., Fl. Bor. Am.

 

The weed, = Cynanchum nigrum L. an Asclepiad of S. Europe.

 

Ever

 

A. G.

 

Recd. July 8

 


 

Cynanchum nigrum (L.) Pers., Black Swallowwort is reported as rare in western New York. It is in the Asclepiadaceae, or Milkweed Family. Juniperus sabina var. procumbens Pursh = J. horizontalis Moench, Creeping Juniper, is rare in western New York. Poa compressa, L., Canada Blue‑grass, is an alien species, common in our area.

 

Hooker, W. J. Flora boreali-americana; or, the botany of the northern parts of British America compiled principally from the plants collected by Dr. Richardson and Mr. Drummond on the late northern expeditions, under command of captain Sir John Franklin, R.N. London 1833-1840, 2 vols.

 


 

Vol. 1. (80) [I 141]

 

Cambridge 9th July [1865] Evening.

 

Dear Clinton

 

Look you, the paper containing your 4th July oration has not come! Did you really send it? Please send another copy, I can read it when on my travels soon, in railroad car, & so lose nothing for Botany, but gain ‑ we shall see what!

 

Seriously I wish to have a copy.

 

Your Mr. Day has sent me that Cynanchum nigrum. And I charge you to tell him what it is, and save me the writing of one letter.

 

Ever Yours

 

A. Gray

 

Recd. July 12

 


 

David F. Day was a fellow lawyer in the City of Buffalo and good friend of Clinton's. He shared Clinton's love of botany and desire to build the Buffalo Society of Natural History's botanical collections. He was a member, with Clinton and Dr. Charles C. F. Gay of the Committee on Botany, formed in 1861. He has probably played a much larger contribution to the botany of western New York and the City of Buffalo than has been so far recognized.

 

A fruitless search has been made at the Erie County Public Library for the published text of Clinton's oration.

 


 

Vol. 1.(103) [I 116 & I 117]

 

C[ambridge] 22d [July, 1865]

 

Have been absorbed in our public days, & especially in our great Commemoration of yesterday.

 

Have overlooked yours of the 10th. I think the leaf is one of Populus heterophylla.

 

I should try Engelmann in Characeae. He should manage them with, or without Prof. Braun's help.

 

I have half a mind to go for a day to Niagara some 3 weeks hence. Now I mean to drop in with my wife, & see you for an hour, and, if I can, Dr. Hadley ‑ my good old friend ‑ for another hour. If you want to communicate with me, address to Sauquoit, Oneida Co., N.Y.

 

Yours

 

A. Gray

 

Recd. July 26

 

Sauquoit is a village in the town of Paris, Oneida Co.

 

Unlike the flat petioles of the "trembling" Aspens (native species of Populus in the Willow family), that of P. heterophylla is round, like the usual introduced species. The seep sinus at the cordate leaf base is generally closed (not open or without a sinus) and the leaf apex is blunt or merely acute. The young foliage and first branches are white‑downy. The tree is more common south and southeast of western New York in inundated swamps.

 

Another sheet gives the following botanical information [I 117]:

 

Ranunculus Flammula var. reptanssmall Eleocharis = the large state of E. palustris ‑ which I never got in such good fruit. I rely on you for some good specimens, in due time, i.e. next winter.

 

Scirpus Torreyi. I fail to see anything remarkable about the root, except that it dosen't appear to have running rootstalks, like pungens ‑ a good distinction. Specimens, of course, wanted for Hb. [Herbarium]

 

I have not seen their Tofieldia glutinosa of Bergen Swamp. But it may well be there! What you send is Zygadenus glaucus but Paine [Hb.?  Herbarium?] mention that too.  Characteristic specimens of Eleocharis rostellata ‑ with your account there as annexed, as to its growth, will be very welcome, indispensable to the full knowledge of the plant. 

 

After getting this, you should send your next to me at Sauquoit, Oneida Co., where I hope to be at the end of next week.

 

Dr. Grosvenor, here to-day, tells me the sad news that poor Bebb has lost his wife. Poor fellow.

 

Our commencement to-morrow. Soldier's commemoration Friday. Your oration received, read, & approved ‑ thorough good tone.

 

Ever

 

A. G.