Asa Gray (1810–88)

American botanist. Fisher Professor of natural history, Harvard University, 1842–73. Wrote numerous botanical textbooks and works on North American flora. President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1863–73; of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1872. Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, 1874–88. Foreign member, Royal Society of London, 1873.