LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LOXDOX. 39 



Clarke, he was born on 17th June, 1832, at Andover, a town he 

 loved to term " the Metropolis '* and boast of the many notable 

 worthies it had produced. He obtained his early education at 

 King's College School, thence going up to Cambridge, at lirst 

 at Trinity College, migrating later to Queen's College. Amongst 

 his contemporaries were Henry Pawcett, Leslie Stephen, John 

 Eigby, and one whom he ever regarded as the chief of his set, 

 Edward Turner, whom weak health and the management of a 

 large estate debarred from showing the abilities with which he 

 was endowed, to the world at large. He graduated in 1856, and 

 was bracketed Third Wrangler in that year; in 1857 he became 

 Fellow of Queen's College, and for nearly ten years remained at 

 Cambridge as College Tutor in Mathematics. In 1858 he was 

 called to the Bar in Lincoln's Inn, but never practised in the 

 Courts, till in 1866 he left for India to join the uncovenanted 

 staff of the Education Department, at first at the Presidency 

 College, afterwards as Inspector of Schools. For two years, from 

 1869 till 1871, he was Acting Superintendent of the Eoyal 

 Botanic Garden at Shibpur, near Calcutta, filling the interval 

 caused by the death of Dr. Thomas Anderson until the appoint- 

 ment of the then Dr. George King. He resumed his education 

 work till 1877, in which year he returned to Europe on two years' 

 furlough. Before this he had made his first essay in botanic 

 literature by printing a list of Andover plants, at Calcutta, in 

 1866 ; and H. C. Watson, in a review in the ' Journal of Botany,' 

 v. (1867) pp. 51-59, made sport of the "Price Threepence," — a 

 review which was resented by Clarke, who extorted an apology by 

 threatening legal process, and published his rejoinder in the same 

 journal, vi. (1868) pp. 215-218. His second book was the folio 

 • Commelinaceae et Cyrtandracese Bengalenses,' in 1874, at Cal- 

 cutta, and a third his ' Compositae Indicse,' in 1876, which he had 

 to correct on his up-country journeys, much to his annoyance, as 

 expressed in the preface. He had found the want of a handy 

 volume on the flora of India, and accordingly reprinted Eoxburgh's 

 ' Flora Indica ' verbatim in 1874. On the termination of his 

 leave in March 1879 Clarke was put on special duty at Kew, to 

 elaborate some portion of Sir J. D. Hooker's ' Flora of British 

 India ' ; and in the second volume of that work appear about 

 284 pages from his pen, beginning with Saxifragacese and closing 

 with Cornacese. These were issued in 1878-79. In the next 

 volume he was responsible for 244 pages, from Caprifoliacea) to 

 Salvadoracese, in 1880-82 ; the fourth volume a still larger share, 

 ending with Yerbenaceae, in 1885. Concurrently with this 

 he prepared and issued through our 'Transactions' the three parts 

 of his '' Eeview of the Ferns of Northern India " (ser. ii. Bot. 

 vol. i. pp. 425-611, pis. 49-84). 



He returned to India in 1883, and in 1885 was transferred 

 from Bengal to Assam, where he remained till his retirement in 

 1887 at the age of 55. 



From an early period Clarke had collected plants, in England, 



