LINNEAK SOCIETY OF LONDON. 57 



botanical information." Oliver owned to the writer of the present 

 lines that he could not keep Kuskin on the straight track-, witness 

 his proposed genus " Lucya" for Genfiana, "after a king who by 

 no means deserved that honour." 



It was only during the last ten years of Oliver's Iveepership 

 that the present writer came into intimate relationship with the 

 Professor, especially when the work afterwards termed ' Index 

 Ivewensis ' was begun. At the very outset Oliver begged me to 

 make use of him in every way conducive to the furtherance of our 

 aims, and during tlie remainder of his official life his help was 

 continuous and unstinted. 



Shortly after attaining the age of BO he retired from office, but 

 continued to live at Kew, and until the end of 1895 acted as 

 editor of Hooker's 'Icones.' lu 1891 the University of Aberdeen 

 conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. ; previously in 

 1882 the Edinburgh Botanical Society had chosen him as one of 

 its six Honorarv Fellows. Other honours were : in 1884, one of 

 the Royal Medals of the Royal Society, and in May, 1893, the 

 Grold Medal of the Linnean Society. 



He rarely suffered from ill-health, and even when afflicted by a 

 bad cold, and wearing a skull-cap in the Herbarium in consequence, 

 he resented enquiries as to his health. His death on the 21st 

 December, 1916, after a few days' illness, was swift and peaceful. 

 He was buried at Isleworth, in the Friends' burial-ground attached 

 to the Meeting House, which he had regularly attended since he 

 came to Kew. 



It was tlie writer's intention to draw up a bibliography of Oliver's 

 Avritiugs, but a nearly complete list having been printed in the 

 Ivew 'Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information' for 1917, pp. 32-36, 

 it seems needless; the only omissions we have noted are two 

 early papers in the ' Phytologist' set out above, and the " Plant 

 and Animal Forms" described by Mr. Britten, which we have 

 quoted from the ' Journal of Botany,' April 1917. 



There is a portrait by J. W. Forster in the Herbarium, Kew, 

 and several photographs at various periods of his life, extant ; the 

 last taken of him showed him in July 1916 as one of a group of 

 four Keepers, his associates being Mr. J. Gr. Baker, Dr. W. Botting 

 Hemsley, and the present holder of the office, Dr. Otto Stapf. 



A compliment our late Father of the Society greatly valued 

 was : when he retired from official work, he contemplated with- 

 drawing from the Society, but the Council unanimously decided 

 to retain his name on our list, as of one whose contributions had 

 greatly added to the importance of our publications, whose c(mnsels 

 had been of value, and his labours of signal worth, to the com- 

 munity of naturalists. [B. D. J.] 



Henry Haeold Welch Pearso.v. — The death of Professor 

 Pearson on November 3, 1916, at the age of forty-six, deprived 

 Botanical science of one of its most active and useful repre- 

 sentatives. His original contributions, which covered a wide field, 



