No one can botanize in California or indeed the West without frequently encountering plants that bear the epithet parryi which commemorates Dr. Charles Christopher Parry. Much has been written about him, but the basic facts are these. He was born in Gloucestershire, England in 1823, the third of nine children, and moved with his family to upstate New York in 1832. No doubt growing up on a farm stimulated his love of nature. He began collecting plants at nineteen, received an M.D. degree from Columbia University in 1846 and began a medical practice at Davenport, Iowa, but quickly realized that botany was his true calling. He was married for the first time in 1853 to Sarah Dalzell who died in childbirth in 1858, and then in 1859 to Emily R. Preston who outlived him by 25 years. He died of pneumonia in 1890 at Davenport, Iowa. John Muir wrote: "It seems as if all the good flower people.... have died now that Parry is gone."
&
|