BALFOUR'S BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS 297 



This new departure in teaching did not interfere with the 

 continuation and extension of field-work, which up to this time 

 had been the form of practical study cultivated in Edinburgh. 

 On the contrary the Botanical Excursion gave Balfour an outlet 

 for energy and favourable opportunity for the exercise of those 

 gifts of personal magnetism and intellectual stimulus through 

 which he influenced and guided many generations of students. 

 Every Saturday during the summer session an excursion was 

 made, and one of some days' duration usually brought the 

 session to a close. Through these excursions the greater part 

 of Scotland was traversed on one occasion the terminal ex- 

 cursion of the session was to Switzerland and the features of 

 flora and vegetation were brought to the attention of many 

 hundreds of students. 



The aim and result of the excursion were not solely the 

 acquisition of plants and their identification. The stimulating 

 effect on many of this side of Botany is evidenced even in our 

 day by the zeal with which search after rare plants is pursued, and 

 in the eagerness displayed in the race after micro-forms. But the 

 enticement of acquisition and discovery of novelty whilst there 

 were not the governing influences in Balfour's excursion. In 

 touch as he was with the problems of organography in its fullest 

 sense, a man of wide reading familiar with the botanical work 

 of his time, and associated as he had been in the field with men 

 like Edward Forbes and Hewett Cottrell Watson, Balfour could 

 and did look at plants from the standpoint of their place in 

 vegetation, and in relation to the conditions of growth, and as 

 having a history in their habitat. His teaching reflected this. 

 It was never classification, diagnosis, and nomenclature as the 

 end-all of Botany. The details emphasised changed as the 

 progress of botanical discovery gave new clues to explanation 

 of form and relation, and it was the solvings and attempts at 

 solvings of observed phenomena that gave that fascination to 

 his excursions, the remembrance of which seems to have clung 

 to those who had the fortune to join them. The succession of 

 plants and plant-form from base to summit of a highland hill ; 

 contrasts of vegetation of stream-course, mountain pasture, 

 alpine rock ; high mountain forms of shore plants ; intrusion 



