Asa Gray, American Botanist
Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 - January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. 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 more simply as ""Gray's Manual"", it has gone through a number of editions with botanical illustrations by Isaac Sprague, and remains a standard in the field. 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 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. He died in 1888 at the age of 77. Photograph by E. Bierstadt, undated.
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