![]() ![]() She assisted him in his work and accompanied him on trips to Europe, the Allegheny Mountains, and to the American West. In 1848 Gray married Jane Lathrop Loring. His 1848 “Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States” became the standard field manual for botanists in the Northeast and his textbooks were used in classes across the U.S. He was a prolific correspondent and writer. In addition to teaching Gray assumed responsibility for the Harvard Botanical Garden and built a herbarium and library. He remained in that position for the rest of his life. In 1842 he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to accept the newly endowed Fisher Professorship at Harvard. Instead he returned to New York to work on the second volume of “Flora.” Complications at Michigan prevented Gray from starting the professorship there. He departed in November 1838 and spent the next 12 months visiting herbaria and meeting prominent botanists in Great Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. In 1838 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Botany at the University of Michigan on condition that he first be allowed a year of study in Europe. Gray was appointed botanist of the United States Exploring Expedition under Charles Wilkes in 1836 but withdrew after the expedition was delayed. The first volume of “Flora of North America”was published in two parts in 1838. He also began work on a North American flora with Torrey. In 1836 he became curator at the New York Lyceum of Natural History. His first publications appeared in the winter of 1834-1835. For the next few years he divided his time between teaching, collecting, and working as Torrey’s assistant. in 1831 and accepted a teaching position at a boys’ school in Utica, New York. Gray’s interest in botany developed during this time and he began corresponding with botanists Lewis Caleb Beck and John Torrey. He attended grammar school in Clinton and continued his education at Fairfield Academy, enrolling in Fairfield’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1829. Gray regularly reviewed new European scientific works and was an early proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.Īsa Gray was born in Sauquoit, New York, on November 18, 1810, to Roxana Howard Gray and Moses Wiley Gray. He also served as a link between American and European botanical sciences. His relationships with European and North American botanists and collectors enabled him to serve as a central clearing house for the identification of plants from newly explored areas of North America. Often called the “Father of American Botany,” Asa Gray was instrumental in establishing systematic botany as a field of study at Harvard University and, to some extent, in the United States.
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