74 



PETER :MAC0WAN. 



bestow upon him the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science, and 

 the degree was formally conferred by the Vice-Chancellor during 

 the early part of the following year. The University Council, 

 in awarding him the doctorate, placed u]:)on the official records 

 the fact that 



" since his arrival in South Africa, Professor MacOwan has carried on the 

 study of South African Botany with entliusiastic zeal and great success, and 

 his scientific work in systematic and applied botany is held in the highest 

 esteem in South Africa as well as in Europe." 



Professor Hahn. in his public eulogium on this occasion, when 

 formally presenting Professor MacOwan for the degree, said that 

 he believed there was no man living in South Africa who had 

 for so long a period been connected with scientific research and 

 scientific work as Professor MacOwan had been. 



Professor Harvey, in the preface to the third volume of Flora 

 Capeiisis. 1865, expressed his thanks and the thanks of Dr. Sonder 

 to Mr. MacOwan, then Principal of Shaw College, 

 " for several hundred species of the plants of his district, most carefully 

 and beautifully dried. From none of their correspondents have the authors 

 received more admirably prepared specimens, and though the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Grahamstown is not particularly rich, and has already been 

 well l^eaten over, Mr. MacOwan has already detected more than one new 

 species, and has added to the Flora the Niixia congesta, of Abyssinia.*-" A 

 greater service to South African Botany has also been rendered by Mr. 

 MacOwan, in that he has succeeded in introducing among the pupils under 

 his care a taste for Botany, which may lead to great results in the next 

 generation." 



In his preface to Vol. 6 of Flora Capensis, 1897, Sir W. Thiselton- 

 Dyer thus endorsed and added to the eulogy of his predecessor : 



" More than thirty years have rolled away since Professor Harvey bore 

 eloc[uent testimony to the indefatigable services of Peter MacOwan, Esq., 

 B.A.. F.L.S., then Principal of Shaw College, Grahamstown, now Government 

 Botanist. Time has not staled his enthusiasm for the beautiful Flora amidst 

 which he has spent the best years of his life, nor his energy in investigating 

 it. ^^'ithout his self-sacrificing aid the present undertaking would have 

 been miserably incomplete. By a correspondence which has never inter- 

 mitted, he has done all in his power to keep Kew abreast of the progress of 

 botanical discovery in South Africa. And he possesses the happy art of 

 communicating some touch of his enthusiasm to others, and has thus secured 

 the investigation of many parts of the area of the Flora which might otherwise 

 have remained all but unknown." 



Sir William coupled the names of MacOwan and Bolus as two 

 that " will be for ever memorable in the history of South African 

 Botany." t f.i\ 



Professor MacOwan. like his friend Harvey, devoted a good 

 deal of his time to the lower groups of plants, in particular the 

 parasitic fungi and the lichens. In fact, most of what is known 

 at present about South African lichenology is due to his zeal in 

 collecting the material for Professor Kalchbrenner and, after the 

 death of this specialist, for Professor Zahlbruckner of the Vienna 

 Hofmuseum. He also discovered some of the most curious fungi 

 and described several of them himself. \\i ^ \ 



In addition to his scientific qualifications. Professor MacOwan 

 was a classical scholar of no m.ean order. In facility of illustration 

 and apt quotation he was not easily matched, and, when soma 

 obscure point needed elucidation, he was as ready with a humorous 



