112 WILLIAM ALLPOKT LEIGHTON. 



private school, in company with the illustrious Charles Darwin, 

 who awakened in him his earliest curiosity in plant-life by plucking 

 a flower and explaining to him that his mother (Mrs. Darwin) 

 could tell the name of the plant by examining the blossoms. They 

 continued to correspond in afterlife. 



Being an only child, and somewhat delicate, his father did not 

 send him to the Royal Free Grammar School of King Edward VI. 

 in his native town, the discipline being thought to be too severe ; 

 he was therefore sent to the Free Grammar School, Wolverhampton, 

 of which the Eev. WilHam Tindal was Head Master. At the age of 

 seventeen he was articled to a solicitor in Shrewsbury, but his 

 father dying soon after, and leaving him a competency, he abandoned 

 the law, for which he had no taste, resolving to enter the Church. 

 Preparing himself for the University, he matriculated at St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1833. The Rev. 

 J. S. Henslow was Regius Professor of Botany there at that time, 

 and young Leighton attended his lectures, and was one of his most 

 zealous pupils. On his return to his native town he set him- 

 self the task of writing a work on the Flora of Shropshire. With 

 this object in view, he deferred seeking ordination, and devoted 

 himself almost exclusively to exploring the county. He contributed 

 a list of Shropshire plants to Mr. Watson for the ' New Botanists' 

 Guide ' (1837) ; and in 1841, seven years after leaving the University, 

 he published his * Flora of Shropshire,' a work remarkable for the 

 accuracy of its original diagnoses, and of the habitats it records : 

 the etchings illustrating the morphology of some of the more 

 difficult genera were by his own hand, and, although somewhat 

 rude, are valuable for their fidelity. In 1843 he was ordained 

 deacon at Easter, and priest at Christmas, as curate of Holy 

 Trinity and St. Giles' Churches, Shrewsbury. These cures he 

 resigned in 1848, but continued to take occasional duty, although 

 he sought no further preferment. He embraced with much ardour 

 the Oxford High Church movement, to which he remained stedfast 

 to the end. 



He had no sooner published his ' Flora of Shropshire ' than he 

 formed the design of working up the cryptogamic flora of the 

 county, and at once commenced an active correspondence with 

 British and foreign cryptogamists. In 1851 the Ray Society pub- 

 lished his ' Angiocarpous Lichens Elucidated by their Sporidea ' ; 

 and the same year he commenced issuing his ' Lichenes Britannici 

 Exsiccati.' In 1854 'A Monograph of British Graphidese' appeared 

 in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History'; in 1856 *A 

 Monograph of the British Umbilicarise ' ; also a series of papers 

 entitled ' Notulse Lichenologicse,' Nos. i.-xxxv., appeared in the 

 same work, extending from 1866 to 1870. The following papers 

 were read before the Linnean Society, and appeared either in the 

 Transactions or the Journal : — ' Lichenes Amazonici et Andini ' ; 

 ♦ Notice on Lichens collected by Sir John Richardson in Arctic 

 America ' ; * Additions to the Lichen Flora of New Zealand ' ; * On 

 a New Species of Umbilicaria ' ; ' Notes on the Lichens of the Island 

 of St. Helena ' ; ' Sphccria tartcu icola Nyl.' ; ' The Lichens of Ceylon, 



