THE LATE LORD DE TABLEY. 79 



fig to be invented. But science is great, and advances in the most unexpected 

 directions. And yet the Ficus suggests painful memories. My dear friend, it 

 is a sad subject, but there was once in the British flora a Raincx Wdirenii. 

 How pathetic is that " once." ! My infant was found — not precisely in the 

 bulruslies, but near them, duly christened by Trimen, and registered in the 

 Journal of Botany* All went well for a time; but one of those infernal 

 German professors, who know everything and several matters besides, wrote 

 that he had found the child in Silesia, or God knows where, and had already 

 christened it Rumc.v Knajli, after some detestable Knaf ! and so it had to be, 

 and you may read in Hooker's StudenVs Flora, last edition, under Riimcx 

 vtaritimus, the sad history how Rumex Warrcnii is now Knafii. Ah, those 

 Germans ! they will quietly come and annex the lot of us some day.'" 



The mention of this limnex recalls the other critical genus for 

 which Warren showed a marked preference, as is indicated by his 

 having a bramble and a dock — Faimex maximus, Schreb., which he 

 practically added to the British floral — engraved on his book- 

 plate. | He collected numerous Faihi for the Botanical Exchange 

 Club, to the Reports of which he contributed valuable notes ; and 

 presented many to the British Museum Herbarium, to which he 

 was at that time a frequent visitor. Among other critical genera 

 to which he paid considerable attention may be mentioned Bromns, 

 Triticum [Ayropijrum), and Callitriche ; of the last of these he 

 described a new species, C. Lachii § (now referred as a variety to 

 C. obtxisamjula), which finds no place in Mr. Jackson's Index, but is 

 published in the Eeport of the Botanical Exchange Club for 1875, 

 p. 17 (1876). 



His Flora of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, printed in 

 this Journal for 1871, is a remarkable contribution to local botany. 

 The scope of his work, however, will best be gathered from the list 

 of papers which is appended to this notice : it is hardly too much 

 to say that there is no one of them which is not instructive and 

 suggestive. 



Warren's principal fellow-workers were Dr. Trimen, Mr. J. G. 

 Baker, Mr. F. M. Webb (whom he engaged for a time to help in the 

 Cheshire Flora), and Mr. R. A. Pryor ; Mr. Newbould was at once 

 his mentor and his admirer, 1| and he was on terms of intimacy 

 with Mr. H. C. Watson : from which it will be seen that he was 

 associated with the best critical English botanists of his period. 

 During the later years of his life he kept up an acquaintance with 

 Mr. Baker, but his retiring disposition and his waning interest in 

 botany separated him from such of his former associates as had not 

 been removed by distance or death. " The most recluse of men," 



* Rumex maritimus forma (hybrida?) Warrcnii, Trimen in Journ. Bot. 1874, 

 161, t. 146. 



t See Journ. Bot. 1874, 34. 



J Warren published, in 1880, ' A Guide to the Study of Book-plates ' ; his 

 own book-plate was designed and presented to him by Mr. W. Bell Scott, who 

 was also a collector of these trilles. 



§ The name refers to the Lach Eye meadows, near Chester, where Warren 

 found the plant. 



II Warren makes this characteristic reference to Newbould: " Borrer is 

 known best at second-hand. In this respect he resembles Socrates, and an 

 acute botanist of the present day who has inherited the reticence of his master." 

 Journ. Bot. 1877, 193. 



