LIXNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 49 



The death of Mr. William Mitten ou July 27th, 1906, has 

 severed one of the few remaining links connecting the botanists 

 of the first half of the nineteenth century with those of the 

 present day. He was elected an Associate of the Linnean Society 

 on Jan. 19th, 18-17.. and was, at the time of his death, the 

 oldesC on the list of Associates. He was born at Hurstpierpoint, 

 in Sussex, on Nov. 30, 1819. He was appi^enticed to a chemist, 

 named Saxby, at Lewes, and it was during this period that he 

 evinced a decided taste for natural history, devoting all his spare 

 time to the study of various branches of British botany. After 

 leaving Lewes he stayed in London for a time as assistant with 

 a wholesale chemist named Yates, and it was apparently during 

 his residence there that in May 1843 he sent his first contribution 

 to the ' Phytologist ' concerning the discovery of BapUurum tenu- 

 issimum at Highgate. This was followed by the finding of Carex 

 montana at Eridge, and the rare fructification of the moss Aula- 

 eomnioti androgynum in Abbey Wood. He settled at Hurstpier- 

 point, Sussex, soon after this period. As a keen observer and 

 gifted with unusually critical faculty in discriminating between 

 closely allied species, he early attracted the attention of William 

 Borrer, who resided at the neighbouring town of Henfield. 



Mr. Borrer took great interest in his work, allow^ed him the 

 use of his valuable library and gave him an excellent microscope, 

 and probably introduced him to Sir AVilliam Hooker. On Dec. 19, 

 1844, Mr. Mitten married Miss Ann Jordan at Abbots Kipton, 

 Huntingdonshire. His first letter to Sir William Hooker, in 

 Dec. 1846, was in connection with a paper on the parasitism of 

 Thesiuin, which appeared in Hooker's ' London Journal of Botany ' 

 in 1847, and was evidently considered to be of unusual interest, 

 since it was repeated in the ' Annales des Sciences Natui'elles.' 

 In 1848 he published descriptions of new British plants in the 

 same Journal, and wrote for the Supplement to 'English Botany ' 

 the description of Gymnomitrium odustum (t. 2925) and Lolium 

 linicola (t. 2955). About this date his attention was especially 

 directed to Musci and Hepaticae, for although he had begun their 

 study in 1843, it was not until after the death of Thomas Taylor 

 in Eebruary 1848, who had been associated with the Hookers in 

 working at the various collections received at Kew, that he 

 published much in these branches of botany, but from 1851 

 onwards he became recognised as the British authority on Musci 

 and Hepaticse. Sir William Hooker desired to retain his services 

 and offered him the post of Curator of the Herbarium in place 

 of J. E. Planchon, but Mitten declined for financial reasons, 

 preferring to carry on his botanical studies in such limited time as 

 could be spared from work in his pharmacy. Eor many years 

 the collections of Musci and Hepaticae received at Kew from 

 all parts of the world were handed to him for identification and 

 description. His first important contribution, apart from short 

 notes, was a Catalogue of the Cryptogamic plants collected by 

 Jameson in the vicinity of Quito, published in the ' Kew Journal 



LINN. see. PEOCEEDINGS. — SESSION 1906-1907. C 



