LIKXEAN SOCIETY OF LOXDON, 5 1 



frame and almost ascetic appearance, which seemed unequal to 

 the demands his business and relaxation made upon it, but he 

 reached the age of 73, dying in his home at Aberdeen on the 

 15th June, 1908. 



The writer of tliese lines is indebted to the kindness of Prof. J. 

 W. H. Trail, F.E.S., for the information contained in an un- 

 published memoir, with portrait, to be issued in the ' Annals of 

 Scottish iS^atural History,' which has permitted of this notice 

 being drawn up. [B. D. J.] 



Alexaxdek "Whtte. — Alexander Whyte was born at Fetter- 

 cairn, Kincardineshire, as the son of the Rev. A. Whyte, M.A., 

 on Marcli 5th, 1S3-1. He was educated at the Parish Scliool 

 there, and, in 1850, entered the University of Aberdeen, where 

 he proved proficient in classics as well as in natural history, and 

 especially in botany. Without taking his degree he left for 

 family reasons for the West Indies, and proceeded later on to 

 Ceylon, where he lived until 1890, when he returned to London. 

 His keen interest in natural history and experience as collector, 

 chiefly of geological objects, recommended him to Mr. (now Sir) 

 H. H. Johnston when preparing for his departure as Commissioner 

 for British Central Africa, and he attached him as principal 

 scientific officer to his statf. Alexander Whyte left for Africa in 

 March 1891. Having stayed six years with Sir H. H. Johnston, 

 he was in 1898 transferred to Ilganda, and in 1902 appointed 

 Director of Agriculture for British East Africa, He retired the 

 following year ; but his energy was by no means exhausted. At 

 the age of 70 he went to Liberia, in the interest of a company, to 

 explore the forest-belt in the interior for rubber-plants. In spite 

 of great hardships and a severe attack of dysentery he successfully 

 executed his commission, and retui'ued home in apparently unim- 

 paired health in 1905. He died at High Barnet, Hertfordshire, 

 on December 21st of the present year. 



His activity as botanical collector dates from 1891, when ht 

 explored the M'lanje Mountains in British Central Africa. The 

 very important collections made on that occasion went to the 

 British Museum, and formed the subject of a paper by the officers 

 of the botanical department of that institution in the 'Trans- 

 actions ' of the Linnean Society, Ser. 2, Botany, vol. iv. pp. 1-67 

 (1894). His later very extensive collections from British Central 

 Africa, Uganda, and British East Africa are mostly at Kew, and, so 

 far, only partially worked up (' Flora of Tropical Africa '). Perhaps 

 his most valuable contribution was from Liberia, a country ^^•hic•h 

 until then was, apart from certain parts of the littoral, botanically 

 almost unexplored. The results of this expedition were in- 

 corporated in Sir H. H. Johnston's ' Liberia,' and the new species 

 described in the ' Journal ' of the Linnean Society, vol. xxxvii. 

 pp. 79-115 (1905). The number of new species discovered by him 

 is very considerable, 'and not a few have been associated with him 



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