THE RED CrRKAXT 23 



to be a better j^lan in this and similar cases to keep the wild species 

 separate from the garden mixture. R. riibrum L. should be dropped 

 as a nomen confusum or retained as a convenient name for the 

 mixture, equivalent to the popular name " Ked Cui'rant." The true 

 wild species, the vai-. silvestre, would be given another name, ])robably 

 M. silceatre Hedlund. Without some such metliod no natural classi- 

 tication of our truly wild flora can in such eases be given. But in the 

 absence of anv special knowledge at present of the original characters 

 of the wild plant this has been left to be done later. 



IIOBERT BRAITHWAITE. 



(1824-1917.) 

 Br H. N. Dixox, M.A., F.L.S. 



[R()i?ERT Braithwatte was born at liuswarp, near Whitby, on 

 May 10, 1824. In 1858 after study at University College, London, 

 he took the degrees of M.R.C.S. and L.S.A. ; in 1865 he graduated 

 M.D. at St. Andrews. In 1863 he became a Fellow of the Linnean 

 Society, of which bod}^ he was a Vice-President in 1889-91, and at 

 whose meetings he was for many years a familiar figure. He took up 

 his residence in Clapham as a general practitionei-, retiring from his 

 ])rofession in 1899 ; in 1869 he married a daughter of Nathaniel 

 Bagsliiiw Ward (1791-1868) who at that time lived at Clapham. 



Braithwaite contril)uted p3,pers on "New British Mosses" to 

 vols, viii.-xi. of this Journal (1870-7-3), and published others in 

 the Journals of the Royal Microscopical Society and the Quekett 

 Club, with both of wliich bodies he was associated : the list of mosses 

 in the Flora of Middlesex is largely compiled from notes contributed 

 by him. Fuller particulars as to his activities will be found, with a 

 portrait, in The NatnraJist for November last (pp. 361-3), to which 

 we are indebted for much of the above information. Mr. H. N. 

 Dixon has kindly sent us the following appreciation of Braithvvaite's 

 scientific work.— Ed. Journ. Bot.] 



Dr. Braithwaite was scarcely known to me except as a br3rologist. I 

 had corresponded with him for perhajDs twenty years before personally 

 meeting him, and even then w'e met but rarely. My chief personal 

 acquaintance with him indeed was during the last few years of his 

 life, when failing health and eyesight had almost withdrawn him 

 from bryological work, and when an occasional visit from a fellow- 

 worker in the old field seemed to be appreciated, as one by one his 

 former comrades dropped away. Correspondence alone, however, soon 

 revealed, and jiersonal acquaintance only confirmed, his unfailing 

 courtesy and geniality, his readiness to help, his enthusiastic and self- 

 sacrificing pursuit of what he hal made his life-task. My first 

 attempts at Bryology received an encouragement from him without 

 which they might easily have succumbed. When in my Cambridge 

 days the guiding star that so often seems to steer the destiny of the 

 youthful hryologist (so-often by the medium of Bitxhaumia aphylla) 

 led me to the discovery of Tortula Vahliana at Cherryhinton, 1 well 

 remember the clicer tliat a warm letter from him livought. Genial 



