380 BOTANICAL NEWS. 



ero;otize(l as LoUnm pereiuie, and some others, lie presented to the 

 Society a series of ergotized British grasses. — Mr. Coutts Trotter noticed 

 the occurrence of Phyteuma spicatum, Melissa (jraiidipora and Imperatoria 

 Ostriithmm near West Pleau, Stirlingshire.— Professor Balfour exhibited 

 specimens of Xanthinm. sjnnusiim, a plant which had sprung up in abuu- 

 dfince ilia pasture field between Canonmills and Borrington after the re- 

 fuse of a tan-work winch had been burnt down, had been spread over the 

 ground. The seeds had probably been introduced with skins or bark. 



f.flfaitkal Uctos. 



On the night of November 1st, died, full of years, William Baxter, for- 

 merly Curator of the Botanic Garden, Oxford. Better known to a former 

 generation than to the present, Mr. Baxter's reputation as a gardener and 

 a botanist has been to the present race a tradition of the past rather than 

 a fact of the present. Mr. Baxter was appointed to the Botanic Garden 

 as long ago as 1813, and retired in favour of his son, Mr. W. H. Baxter, 

 the present holder of the office, some twenty years since. In 1817 he 

 was admitted as an Associate of the Linnean Society, and in this present 

 niontli he sank to his rest in his eighty-fourth year. . . . 



W' lien Mr. Baxter was first appointed to the Botanic Garden, Oxford, 

 botany had sunk to its lowest level ; Sherard, Dillenius, and Sibthorp 

 belonged to the past. Dr. Williams, who held the chair in the early part 

 of Baxter's curatorship, was an elegant scholar and an amiable man, but 

 added nothing to botanical science ; and for practical instruction in 

 botany the undergraduates of that day had recourse to the teachings of 

 Mr. Baxter. Among his pupils were many men who subsequently dis- 

 tinguished themselves in various ways, and some of whom, such as the 

 present Bishop of Chichester, kept up their acquaintance with their 

 instructor up to recent times. It was at this period of his career that 

 Mr. Baxter edited his ' British Botany,' a work in several volumes, 

 devoted to the description and illustration of British plants. The illus- 

 trations are of unequal merit, but the amount of information accumulated 

 is extremely large, and bears witness, not only to great shrewdness of 

 perception and accuracy of observation, but to indefatigable zeal and 

 labour. But it was in Cryptogamic botany that Mr. Baxter specially 

 excelled, in this proving himself a worthy comjieer of his fellow-labourers, 

 Dawson-Turner, Borrer, Burton, and others. Even to comparatively late 

 years Mr. Baxter retained, in a remarkable degree, his knowledge of 

 Mosses and Kpiphyllous Fungi, gained at a time when the number of 

 students in those departments of botany in this country might be counted 

 on the fingers of one band, and acquired before the compound microscope 

 had become the valuable instrument it now is. But Mr. Baxter did not 

 allow his botanical pursuits to interfere with his practical duties. It is 

 on record that he made great changes for the better in the garden, raised 

 its level so that it was no longer Hooded, and stored it with rare plants 

 to an extent that rendered the Oxford Botanic Garden one of the most 

 remarkable of its time. . . . 



