Harvard Professor Asa Gray received one of the first copies of "Origin of Species" to arrive in the United States, read it between Christmas and New Year's 1859, and was instantly convinced. He became the most prominent supporter of Darwin's theories in the United States, met Darwin on trips to Europe, and exchanged more than 300 letters with him. Like Joseph Hooker, Gray supplied Darwin with botanical information in support of his books. Darwin's "Form of Flowers" is dedicated to Gray. Gray remains well known for his extensive botanical work on North American flora, and Gray's Manual is still used in professional botany and university teaching. [A late edition cites Mendel's papers on peas, but the reference seems to have been gleaned from a secondary source, and there is no evidence that anyone read it].

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