Asa GrayForMemRS (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century.[1][2] His Darwiniana was considered 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. He was a strong supporter of Darwin, although Gray's theistic evolution was guided by a Creator.
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.[3] 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 to the American Philosophical Society.[4]
^Biographies of Scientists and Explorers 2015.
^Love 1998, p. 173.
^Moore, Macklin & DeCesare 2010, pp. 277–286.
^"APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
AsaGray ForMemRS (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was considered...
The AsaGray House, recorded in an HABS survey as the Garden House, is a historic house at 88 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. A National Historic...
rejection of design, was atheism though he accepted that AsaGray did not reject design. AsaGray responded that this charge misrepresented Darwin's text...
honor of his botanist colleague AsaGray. Gray did not see (and climb) the peak until 1872, eleven years later. Grays Peak is commonly mentioned in conjunction...
Jane Loring Gray (1821–1909) was an American editor. Although she was not herself a botanist, through her sympathy with her husband, AsaGray, in his scientific...
000 ft (1,500 to 2,700 m). It was named and described in 1870 by botanist AsaGray after Josiah Gregg (1806 – 1850), a merchant, explorer, naturalist, and...
society gives annual awards for excellence in Botany. The Society gives the AsaGray Award for "outstanding accomplishments pertinent to the goals of the Society...
and was first described in Western literature by Harvard-based botanist AsaGray. He described thousands of plants collected by the United States multi-ship...
the self-evolving powers of nature". AsaGray discussed teleology with Darwin, who imported and distributed Gray's pamphlet on theistic evolution, Natural...
Species, and he used the term later in letters to colleagues. In 1873, AsaGray published an article in The Nation saying a "special creationist" who held...
a plant native to Japan and named for 19th-century American botanist AsaGray. Grayanotoxin I (grayanotoxane-3,5,6,10,14,16-hexol 14-acetate) is also...
Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism is a collection of essays by botanist AsaGray, first published in 1876. These widely read essays both defended the theory...
Darwin, C. R. to Gray, Asa, (8–9 Feb 1860), Darwin Correspondence Project, retrieved 5 December 2008 Letter 2743 – Darwin, C. R. to Gray, Asa, 3 Apr (1860)...
botanist who collected extensively in Texas for Harvard University professor AsaGray. It is commonly grown as an ornamental plant. Oenothera lindheimeri is...
portions of Flora of North America, with the assistance of his pupil, AsaGray. From 1853 he was chief assayer to the United States assay office in New...
into his Christian beliefs as merely the way God worked. Darwin's friend AsaGray (1810–1888) defended natural selection as compatible with design. Darwin...
opinions on controversial issues. His letters to the Harvard botanist AsaGray, for example, show his opinions on slavery and the American Civil War....
Rev. Asa McGray (1780–1843) is best known as the minister who established the first church of Free Will Baptists in Nova Scotia, Canada. The son of Capt...
2015-07-05. "Flora of North America, Tagetes lemmonii A. Gray". efloras.org. Retrieved 2015-07-05. Gray, Asa 1882. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts...
emerging theory of evolution, at about the same time as J.D. Hooker and AsaGray published essays also supporting Darwin's hypothesis. On the other hand...
in 1852 through the Mexican Boundary Survey and was first described by AsaGray. Natural rubber, ethanol, non-toxic adhesives, and other specialty chemicals...
the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The Herbaria, founded in 1842 by AsaGray, are one of the 10 largest in the world with over 5 million specimens,...
was ascribed to the species by the American botanists John Torrey and AsaGray when it was officially described in 1857. A number of former varieties...
by Blume in 1850 and E. binacag is now regarded as a synonym. In 1854, AsaGray described Eucalyptus multiflora in United States Exploring Expedition -...
the elder (Don)), AsaGray, James Francis Macbride, Per Axel Rydberg, Louis Otho Williams, and Mikhail Grigorevich Popov. AsaGray divided Mertensia into...
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