Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) was an American botanist who was considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana (1876) was considered by some as an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was adamant that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species. He was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution. Gray was a strong supporter of Darwin while at the same time being a proponent of theistic evolution.
As a professor of botany at Harvard University for several decades, Gray regularly visited, and corresponded with, many of the leading natural scientists of the era, including Charles Darwin, who held great regard for him. Gray made several trips to Europe to collaborate with leading European scientists of the era, as well as trips to the southern and western United States. He also built an extensive network of specimen collectors.
A prolific writer, he was instrumental in unifying the taxonomic knowledge of the plants of North America. Of Gray's many works on botany, the most popular was his Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, from New England to Wisconsin and South to Ohio and Pennsylvania Inclusive, known today simply as Gray's Manual. Gray was the sole author of the first five editions of the book and co-author of the sixth, with botanical illustrations by Isaac Sprague. Further editions have been published, and it remains a standard in the field. Gray also worked extensively on a phenomenon that is now called the Asa Gray disjunction, namely, the surprising morphological similarities between many eastern Asian and eastern North American plants. Several structures, geographic features, and plants have been named after Gray.
In 1848, Gray was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Contents
Early life and education
Gray was born in Sauquoit, New York, on November 18, 1810, to Moses Gray (b. February 26, 1786), then a tanner, and Roxanna Howard Gray (b. March 15, 1789). Born in the back of his father's tannery, Gray was the eldest of their eight children. Gray's paternal great-grandfather had arrived in Boston from Northern Ireland in 1718; Gray's Scotch-Irish Presbyterian ancestors had moved to New York from Massachusetts and Vermont after Shays's Rebellion. His parents married on July 30, 1809. Tanneries needed a lot of wood to burn, and the lumber supply in the area had been shrinking, so Gray's father used his profits to buy farms in the area, and in about 1823 sold the tannery and became a farmer.
Gray was an avid reader even in his youth. He completed Clinton Grammar School from about 1823 to 1825, in those years reading many books from the nearby library at Hamilton College. In 1825 he enrolled at Fairfield Academy, switching to its Fairfield Medical College, also known as the Medical College of the Western District of Fairfield, in autumn 1826. It was during this time that Gray began to mount botanical specimens. On a trip to New York City, he attempted to meet with John Torrey to get assistance in identifying specimens, but Torrey was not home, so Gray left the specimens at Torrey's house. Torrey was so impressed with Gray's specimens that he began a correspondence with him. Gray graduated and became an M.D. in February 1831, even though he was not yet 21 years of age, which was a requirement at the time. Although Gray did open a medical office in Bridgewater, New York, where he had served an apprenticeship with Doctor John Foote Trowbridge while he was in medical school, he never truly practiced medicine, as he enjoyed botany more. It was around this time that he began making explorations in New York and New Jersey. By autumn 1831, he had all but given up his medical practice to devote more time to botany.
In 1832 he was hired to teach chemistry, mineralogy, and botany at Bartlett's High School in Utica, New York, and at Fairfield Medical School, replacing instructors who had died in mid-term. Agreeing to teach for one year, with a break from August to December 1832, Gray had to cancel his plans for an expedition to Mexico, which at the time included what is now the southwestern United States. Gray first met Torrey in person in September 1832, and they went on an expedition to New Jersey. After completing his teaching assignment in Utica on August 1, 1833, Gray became an assistant to Torrey at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. By this time, Gray was corresponding and trading specimens with botanists not just in America, but also in Asia, Europe, and the Pacific Islands. Gray held a temporary teaching position in 1834 at Hamilton College. In 1834 and 1835 he issued the exsiccata North American Gramineae and Cyperaceae in 2 parts. The specimen series is now housed in major herbaria worldwide Due to funding shortages, in 1835 Gray was obliged to leave his job as Torrey's assistant, and in February or March 1836 became curator and librarian at the Lyceum of Natural History in New York, now called the New York Academy of Sciences. He had an apartment in their new building in Manhattan. Torrey's attempt to get Gray a job at Princeton University was unsuccessful, as were other attempts to find him a position in science. Despite Gray no longer being his assistant, Torrey and Gray became lifelong friends and colleagues. Torrey's wife, Eliza Torrey, had a profound impact upon Gray in his manners, tastes, habits, and religious life.
Career
In October 1836 Gray was selected to be one of the botanists on the United States Exploring Expedition (1838–1842), also known as the "Wilkes Expedition", which was supposed to last three years. Gray began getting paid well for his work preparing and planning for this expedition, even to the point of loading supplies onto a ship in New York harbor. However, the expedition was fraught with politics, bickering, turmoil, inefficiency, and delays. Referring to the Secretary of the Navy, Mahlon Dickerson, Gray wrote of "abominable management & stupidity". Despite this, Gray resigned from the Lyceum in April 1837 to devote his time to the preparations. By 1838 the expedition was in utter turmoil. The new state of Michigan was starting its university, and Gray applied for a professorship in early 1838. He resigned from the Wilkes Expedition on July 10, 1838. In 1848 Gray was hired to work on the botanical specimens, and published the first volume of the report on botany in 1854, but Wilkes was unable to secure the funding for the second volume.
On July 17, 1838, Gray became the very first permanent paid professor at the newly founded University of Michigan, although in the event he never taught classes. His position was also the first one devoted solely to botany at any educational institution in America. Appointed Professor of Botany and Zoology, Gray was dispatched to Europe by the regents of the university for the purpose of purchasing a suitable array of books to form the university's library, and equipment such as microscopes to aid research. Botanist Charles F. Jenkins states that the main purpose of this trip was to examine American flora in Europe's herbariums. Gray departed on the packet ship Philadelphia on November 9, 1838, sailing through The Narrows out of New York Harbor nine days before his 28th birthday. Gray and the regents were both involved in stocking the university library. In 1839 the regents purchased a complete copy of Audubon's The Birds of America for the then-extraordinary sum of $970. Gray's first stop was in Glasgow, visiting William Hooker, who aided and financially supported many botanists, including Gray. On January 16, 1839, he arrived in London and stayed until March 14. He then spent time in Paris, where he collaborated with Joseph Decaisne at the Jardin des Plantes. In mid-April 1839 he left Paris for Italy by way of southern France, then visiting Genoa, Rome, Florence, Venice, Bologna, Padua, and Trieste. After Italy, Gray went to Vienna, Austria. While in Vienna, he spent twelve days studying specimen collections and gardens with Stephan Endlicher, who also introduced him to other local botanists. In 1840 Endlicher became director of the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna. Departing Austria, Gray went to Munich, Zürich, and Geneva, where he met the prominent botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, who died in 1841. Gray continued extensive collaboration with de Candolle's son Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle. Gray returned to Germany, going to Freiburg, Tübingen, Dresden, Halle, and then Berlin, where he stayed for a month. While in Berlin, he spent most of his time in Schöneberg, where the region's Botanical Gardens were then located. Gray then returned to London by way of Hamburg. Gray admitted he just managed some of the book purchasing and that he delegated the actual buying of books to George Palmer Putnam, who was then living in London. Gray spent a year in Europe, leaving for America from Portsmouth, England, aboard the sailing ship Toronto on October 1, 1839, and arriving back in New York on November 4. Gray, together with his agents, eventually purchased about 3,700 books for the University of Michigan library. The regents at the University of Michigan were so impressed by Gray's work in Europe, including his spending about $1,500 of his own money on specimen collections, that they granted him another year's salary that covered him until the summer of 1841. However, finances at the university were so bad that they asked him to resign in April 1840.
Harvard professor
Both Gray and Torrey were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in December 1841. Gray never returned to teach a course at Michigan. In 1833 Dr. Joshua Fisher, a resident of Beverly, Massachusetts, and a Harvard University alumnus, bequeathed $20,000 to Harvard to endow a chair in natural history. The university allowed the proceeds to accumulate until it could fund a full year's salary for a professor. Because of this and a few problems in finding a suitable professor, this chair was not filled until it was formally offered to Gray on March 26, 1842. The offer was $1,000/year salary, teaching duties limited to only botany, and being superintendent of Harvard's botanic garden. While the salary was low, the teaching limitation, rare for the time, allowed him plenty of time to do research and work in the botanic garden. After an exchange of letters, Gray accepted this appointment as Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard. The formal appointment was made April 30, 1842. Gray arrived at Harvard on July 22, 1842, and began his duties in September. He did not have to teach in the fall of 1842, but began in spring 1843, the first classes he had taught in nine years. Early in his years at Harvard, Gray had to borrow money from his father. Soon he was able to repay his father and help his family by supplementing his income giving lectures outside of Harvard, including at the Lowell Institute. Gray was considered a weak lecturer, but because of his expert knowledge, he was highly regarded by his peers. His skills were better suited to teaching advanced rather than introductory classes. He was also known for his textbooks and high quality illustrations. Gray moved into what became known as the Asa Gray House in the Botanic Garden in the summer of 1844. It had been built in 1810 for William Dandridge Peck and later occupied by Thomas Nuttall. As the demands of teaching, collecting, selling specimens, taking care of the herbarium, and writing books increased and he himself was not a good illustrator, Gray found it necessary to hire a botanical illustrator – Isaac Sprague, who illustrated much of Gray's works for decades to come.
By June 1848 many of the specimens from the Wilkes Expedition had been damaged or lost. Many were still not classified or published, as the mismanagement and bungling that had plagued the expedition before it ever departed continued. While on a trip to Washington, D.C., that month with his new bride, Gray was hired to study the botanical specimens for five years. This included a year in Europe, with his wife, using the facilities at the herbariums in Europe. Mr. and Mrs. Gray departed for England on June 11, 1850. They spent the summer traveling to Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Gray then set down to work on the expedition's plant sheets at the estate of botanist George Bentham, whom he had met eleven years earlier, and then with William Henry Harvey in Ireland. Gray returned to England and settled into a routine at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The couple was back in America on September 4, 1851. In the meantime, a dispute had arisen between Wilkes and the team of Torrey and Gray about the format of the books resulting from the expedition. Gray almost hired his father-in-law to break the contract. This dispute largely centered on the use of Latin and English. Wilkes wanted a literal Latin to English translation while Torrey and Gray wanted a looser one because they felt that technical English terms were equally incomprehensible to the public. Much of the work was stymied or burned in fires.
"Asa Gray disjunction"
Gray worked extensively on a phenomenon that is now called the "Asa Gray disjunction", namely, the surprising morphological similarities between many eastern Asian and eastern North American plants. In fact, Gray felt the flora of eastern North America is more similar to the flora of Japan than it is to the flora of western North America, but more recent studies have shown this is not so. While Gray was not the first botanist to notice this (it was first noticed in the early 18th century), beginning in the early 1840s he brought scientific focus to the issue. He was the first scientist in the world to possess the requisite knowledge set to do so as he had intimate knowledge of the northeast and southeast United States as well as eastern Asia – due to several contacts he had there. The phenomenon involves about 65 genera and is not limited to plants, but also includes fungi, arachnids, millipedes, insects, and freshwater fishes. It was believed that each pair of species might be international sister species, but it is now known that this is not generally the case; the species involved are less closely related to one another. Today, botanists suggest three possible causes for the observed morphological similarity, which probably developed at different times and via different pathways; the species pairs are: (1) the products of similar environmental conditions in separate locations, (2) relics of species that were formerly widely distributed but diversified later, (3) not as morphologically similar as was previously believed. Gray's work in this area gave significant support to Darwin's theory of evolution and is one of the hallmarks of Gray's career. In 1880 David P. Penhallow was accepted by Gray as a research assistant. Penhallow aided in Gray's work regarding the distribution of northern hemisphere plants, and in 1882 Gray recommended Penhallow as a lecturer to Sir John Dawson of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Later career
Despite no longer having the burden of his professorial and garden duties, by the late 1870s the burden of maintaining himself as the pillar of American botany prevented Gray from the progress he desired on Synoptical Flora of North America, the follow-on to Flora of North America. This burden consisted of the fact that other scientists often only accepted Gray's word on a botanical matter, and the number of incoming specimens to identify was increasing vastly: numbers had to be assigned to them, collectors needed to be corresponded with, and preliminary papers had to be published. By the early 1880s, Gray's home was the center of everything to do with botany in America. Every aspiring botanist came to see him, even if just to look at him through his window.
After turning over his non-research duties to Sargent, Goodale, Farlow, and Watson, Gray concentrated more on research and writing, especially on plant taxonomy, as well as lecturing around the country, largely promoting Darwinian ideas. Many of his lectures during this time were given at the Yale Divinity School. Liberty Hyde Bailey worked as Gray's herbarium assistant for two years during 1883–1884.
In spring 1887 Gray and his wife made their last trip to Europe, this one for six months from April to October, primarily to see Hooker.
Gray received the following advanced degrees: honorary degree of Master of Arts (1844) and Doctor of Laws (1875) from Harvard, and Doctor of Laws from Hamilton College (New York) (1860), McGill University (1884), and the University of Michigan (1887).
Research regarding the American West
Prior to 1840, besides what he had discovered during his trip to Europe, Gray's knowledge of the flora of the American West was limited to what he could learn from Edwin James, who had been on the expedition to the West of Major Stephen Harriman Long, and from Thomas Nuttall, who had been on an expedition to the Pacific coast with Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. In the latter half of 1840, Gray met the German-American botanist and physician George Engelmann in New York City. Engelmann took frequent trips to explore the American West and northern Mexico. The two remained close friends and botanical collaborators. Engelmann would send specimens to Gray, who would classify them and act as a sales agent. Their collaborations greatly enhanced botanical knowledge of those areas. Another German-American botanist, Ferdinand Lindheimer, collaborated with both Engelmann and Gray, focusing on collecting plants in Texas, hoping to find specimens with "no Latin names". This cooperation resulted in issuing the exsiccata-like series Lindheimer Flora Texana exsiccata. Another long-term and productive collaboration was with Charles Wright, who collected in Texas and New Mexico on two separate expeditions in 1849 and 1851–1852. These trips resulted in publication of the two-volume Plantae Wrightianae in 1852–1853.
Gray traveled to the American West on two separate occasions, the first in 1872 by train, and then again with Joseph Dalton Hooker, son of William Hooker, in 1877. His wife accompanied him on both trips. Both times his goal was botanical research, and he avidly collected plant specimens to bring back with him to Harvard. On his second trip through the American West, he and Hooker reportedly collected over 1,000 specimens. Gray's and Hooker's research was reported in their joint 1880 publication, "The Vegetation of the Rocky Mountain Region and a Comparison with that of Other Parts of the World," which appeared in volume six of Hayden's Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geophysical Survey of the Territories.
On both trips he climbed Grays Peak, one of Colorado's many fourteeners. His wife climbed Grays Peak with him in 1872. This mountain was named after Gray by the botanist and explorer of the Rocky Mountains Charles Christopher Parry.
Prior to the 1870s, collecting in the western part of the country required slow horses, wagons, and often military escorts. But by this time, permanent settlements and railroads resulted in so many specimens coming in that Gray alone could not keep up with them. One of the post-war collectors who worked extensively with Gray was John Gill Lemmon, husband of fellow botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon. Gray named a new genus Plummera, now called Hymenoxys, in Sara's honor.
Relationship with Darwin
Gray and Joseph Dalton Hooker went to visit Richard Owen at London's Hunterian Museum in January 1839. Gray met Charles Darwin during lunch that day at Kew Gardens, apparently introduced by Hooker. Darwin found a kindred spirit in Gray, as they both had an empirical approach to science, and first wrote to him in April 1855. During 1855–1881 they exchanged about 300 letters. Darwin then wrote to Gray requesting information about the distribution of various species of American flowers, which Gray provided, and which was helpful for the development of Darwin's theory. This was the beginning of an extensive lifelong correspondence. Gray, Darwin, and Hooker became lifelong friends and colleagues, and Gray and Hooker conducted research on Darwin's behalf in 1877 on their Rocky Mountain expedition. After Hooker returned to England and reported to Darwin on their adventure, Darwin wrote back to Gray: "I have just ... heard prodigies of your strength & activity. That you run up a mountain like a cat!"
Before 1846, Gray had been firmly opposed to the idea of transmutation of species, in which simpler forms naturally become more complex over time, including via hybridization. By the early 1850s, Gray had clearly defined his concept that the species is the basic unit of taxonomy. This was partly the result of the 1831–1836 voyage during which Darwin discovered the differentiation of species among the various Galápagos Islands. Local geography could produce variances, like in the Galápagos and Hawaii, which Gray did not get to study in depth as he had wanted. Gray was insistent that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species, that like begat like. This concept was critical to Darwin's theories. Gray was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution.
When Darwin received Alfred Russel Wallace's paper that described natural selection, Hooker and Charles Lyell arranged for a joint reading of papers by Darwin and Wallace to the Linnean Society on July 1, 1858. Since Darwin had nothing prepared, the reading included excerpts from his 1844 Essay and from a letter he had sent to Asa Gray in July 1857 outlining his theory on the origin of species. By that time, Darwin had begun writing his book On the Origin of Species. The correspondence with Gray was thus a key piece of evidence in establishing Darwin's intellectual priority with respect to the theory of evolution by natural selection. Neither Darwin nor Wallace attended the meeting. The papers were published by the society as On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. By summer 1859 it was obvious to Gray and others working with Darwin that On the Origin of Species would be a ground-breaking book.
Personal life
Gray became engaged to Jane Lathrop Loring of Boston in May 1847. Two of Gray's younger brothers, George and Joseph, were students at Harvard in the late 1840s and lived with Gray. During his junior year, George caught typhoid fever in late 1847 and died on January 9, 1848, in the Loring house in Boston. This is part of the reason Gray's marriage was delayed from fall 1847 to spring 1848. Gray and Jane Loring married on May 4, 1848. Her parents were Charles Greely Loring (1794–1867), a member of the Harvard Corporation and a lawyer, and Anna Pierce (Brace) Loring. Her family was Unitarian, like most faculty and staff of Harvard at the time. Both of them kept to their separate religious denominations yet seem to have had no difficulties over it. They had no children. Jane Gray accompanied her husband on most of his expeditions. Gray was a devout Presbyterian and was a member of First Church in Cambridge, a Congregational church, where he served as a deacon. He was also an ardent empiricist in the tradition of John Locke and John Stuart Mill. When the congregation moved into its present building in 1872, at 11 Garden Street, Gray planted two Kentucky yellowwood trees, Cladrastis kentukea, in front of the church. They stood until October 2014.
Death
On Monday, November 28, 1887, Gray's hand and arm became paralyzed while he was coming down the stairs for breakfast. Even though the paralysis worsened, he was able to address two letters. On Thursday he lost the ability to speak in a steady rhythm. He lay speechless and quiet for two months, and died on January 30, 1888. He was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. He wanted a simple gravestone, so his wife had it engraved with a cross and "Asa Gray 1810–1888". The cemetery's Asa Gray Garden, with a central fountain and numerous unusual tree varieties, is named in his honor.
Legacy
Life work
Some of Gray's achievements were the "Asa Gray disjunction", and the vast network of scientists he built who all communicated with one another and exchanged ideas. He is considered the pre-eminent American botanist of the 19th century.
On Gray's 75th birthday, botanists led by editors of the Botanical Gazette presented Gray with a silver vase with the inscription "1810, November eighteenth, 1885. Asa Gray, in token of the universal esteem of American Botanists." An accompanying silver salver had the inscription "Bearing the greetings of one hundred and eighty botanists of North America to Asa Gray on his 75th birthday, Nov. 18, 1885."
Also received on his 75th birthday was a poem by James Russell Lowell:
Namesakes
Grayanotoxin is named after him.
William Hooker named the genus Grayia after Gray.
The Asa Gray Award, awarded by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, was established in 1984 to honor a living botanist for career achievements.
Gray has two namesake buildings at Harvard University: the Asa Gray House, which is a National Historic Landmark, and the Gray Herbarium.
A residential building is named after him on the Stony Brook University campus.
Two mountain peaks are named after him: Gray Peak in New York and Grays Peak in Colorado. The latter is near Torreys Peak, named after his mentor and friend John Torrey.
In 2011 the US Postal Service released an Asa Gray first-class postage stamp as part of its American Scientists series, along with Melvin Calvin, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, and Severo Ochoa. This was the third volume of this series. It features Shortia galacifolia, a flowering plant that fascinated Gray.
A street named after Asa Gray is home to the University Commons of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Asa Gray Park in Lake Helen, Florida, is named in his honor.