128 BOTANICAL NEWS. 



than twenty years, and had only retired from it some years a^o. 

 During all his business life, he carried on his observations and expe- 

 riments on the drugs with which he was so constantly in contact, and 

 from 1850 published numerous and valuable papers on pharmaceutical 

 subjects in the scientific journals. It was the botanical aspect of 

 pharmacology in which he was specially interested, and he contributed 

 more than anybody else to the determination of the sources of numer- 

 ous obscure drugs. Besides his separate papers, Mr. Hanbury was 

 the author of a small work, " On Chinese Materia Medica" (1862), 

 and (with Dr. Fliickiger) of the " Pharmacographia," published last 

 year, all his work is characterised by the same unusual and 

 minute accuracy and care. A member of the Society of Friends, 

 his was an example of the quiet and harmless life so often 

 seen in that body; abstemious and hard-working, he possessed 

 remarkable activity of both body and mind ; and, quite unequalled in 

 the knowledge of his speciality, his loss causes a blank which must 

 long remain unfilled. He was elected F.R.S. in 1867, and his death 

 makes a vacancy in the treasurership of the Linnean Society, to which 

 he was elected last year. The late Dr. Seemann named a handsome 

 Cucurbitaceous plant after Mr. Hanbury in 1858. 



Ernst Ferdinand Nolte, formerly Professor and Director of the 

 Botanic Gardens, died at Kiel, on 13th February, at the advanced age of 

 eighty-four. His chief work was the ''Novitise Florae Holsaticae,'' 

 published so long ago as 1826. 



We regret to record the death, which occurred on 8th March, of 

 Robert Hardwicke, the well-known publisher of Syme's English 

 Botany, and other botanical works, including this Journal from 1863 

 to 1867. 



The death is announced, on the 19th March, at Louvain, of the 

 Baron Oscar de Dieudonne. For some years past he had employed 

 his time, and part of his fortune, in collecting materials for a general 

 Flora of Europe. 



The question of the ownership of the late Dr. Welwitsch's African 

 collections, which he had disposed of by will in the manner detailed 

 in our memoir of that eminent botanist (1873, p. 10), came before 

 Yice-Chancellor Hall in the Court of Chancery, on March 22nd, the 

 Portuguese Government heiving laid claim unconditionally to the whole 

 of them. The judge at once expressed an opinion that it was a case 

 for compromise between the plaintiff (the King of Portugal) and the 

 executors, and the cause was adjourned, with the object of affording 

 opportunity for such an arrangement. We understand that several 

 attempts in this direction out of court have already been made 

 by the defendants, as well as by Dr. Gomes, acting on behalf of the 

 plaintiff ; but from some cause all have been uniformly unsuccessful. 

 It is to be hoped that this decided expression of opinion on the part 

 of the judge may lead to a compromise in which the spirit, if not the 

 letter, of the, as it seems to us, just and honourable will of Dr. 

 Welwitsch will be carried out, and the interests of science duly 

 served. 



