54 PItOCEEDIXGS OF THE 



by careful search in other parts of Gahvay ; the scraps which 

 I obtained were in a small lake not very far from the village 

 [of Koundstone], I quite think floating, or perhaps detached, at 

 the time of my collecting them ; but unfortuiiately they were 

 put away without either suiEcient examination or consideration ; 

 it does so happen that we are at times unaccountably deficient 

 even in ordinary observation" (ib. p. 127). In the same volume also 

 appeared "Botanical notes of a week in Ireland during the 

 present month (August, 1852), by Daniel Oliver, Jun., Esq., 

 F.B.S.E." The signature calls attention to the fact that he had 

 lost his grandfather, and bad become a Fellow of the Botanical 

 Society of Edinburgh (in 1851) ; on the second page (677) is a 

 paragraph on Naiasfiexilis. 



The next year he was elected into the Linnean Society, on the 

 1st February, 1853 ; he \\as proposed by Edward Newman, George 

 Stacey Gibson, and J. S. Bowerbank. Mr. Allan A. Black became 

 the assistant to Sir W. J. Hooker in charge of the Herbarium in 

 the same year, to whom Oliver succeeded in due course. 



In February, 1858, Oliver came to Loudon, on the invitation of 

 Sir W. J. Hooker, to help in the Herbarium, for which a small 

 grant had recently been made ; part of his early duties were to 

 prepare Spruce's collections for distribution. 



l)r. Lindley's health having become unsatisfactory, he resigned 

 his chair of Botany in University College, Gower Street, in 1861 ; 

 he was succeeded by Daniel Oliver, who held it until 1888. In 

 order to avoid trenching upon his official \\ork at Kew, Oliver 

 lectured at 8 a.m. from the first week in May till the middle of 

 July ; this was effected by a local constable being employed to 

 knock at his bedroom window at the early hour required for the 

 professor's drive to Gower Street. 



He was elected F.R.S. in 1863, and in 1864 became Keeper of 

 the Herbarium and Library at Kew, which post he held until his 

 retirement in 1890. 



Dr. A\^. Betting Hemsley, F.E.S., who was very closely 

 associated with Oliver for a long series of years, has most happily 

 described the professor's methods. He says: "During this period 

 he worked with untiring zeal on the constant influx of collections 

 from all ])arts of the world, and set an example of punctuality and 

 conscientious devotio)! to duty that has not failed to produce good 

 fruit. Indeed, it was the discharge of his duties that prevented 

 liim during later years from continuing the valuable contributions 

 to scientific literature, which had procured him a distinguished 

 position among botanists of all countries. He studied all 

 branches of botany, but his fame will rest on his unrivalled know- 

 ledge of flowering plants. This vast store of knowledge has 

 always been open to all who chose to consult him, and its direct 

 influence on the writings of others is only known to the few 

 intimately connected with his official life. Probably no one man 

 ever knew so much as he of those aberrant types which puzzle the 

 most experienced botanists" (Journ. Kew Guild, 1898). 



