HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. lxiii. 



The list enumerates rather more than 300 plants, and is 

 thoroughly representative. It contains a few mistakes, some 

 of which have been detected by being repeated in a small 

 collection of plants, formed by J. Walker in 1862, which is 

 now in the botanical room at Belle Vue Museum. 



The Halifax Scientific Society had its origin in 1874, m a 

 course of University Extension Lectures on Geology, by Prof. 

 W. J. Sollas, F.R.S., and was for a time known as the Halifax 

 Geologists' Field Club. It was not till 1886 or 1887 that a 

 Botanical Section was established in connection with the 

 Society, and the prime movers in its ioundation still happily 

 remain associated with the Natural History Section, as it is 

 now called. 



But any sketch of deceased Halifax botanists would be 

 incomplete which did not make mention of Henry Thomas 



Soppitt, though he was only a member of the 

 H. T. Society for five years, joining it when he took 



Soppitt. up his residence in Halifax, in 1894. He had 



then for years been recognised as one of the 

 ablest botanists in Yorkshire, and he soon took a keen interest 

 in the Halilax Flora, especially in his own branch of the fungi. 



Passing by his additions to the list of fungi, and records of 

 mosses, some of which are to be found in the annual reports in 

 the Halifax Naturalist, he was the first to record in recent years 

 Sisymbrium Tlialianum, Epilobium roseum, Ceratophyllum demersum, 

 Potamogeton pusillus, P. pectinatus, and Festuca sylvatica amongst 

 the flowering plants. 



Other phases of Soppitt's activities, especially his experi- 

 mental researches on the microscopic fungi, have been dealt 

 with in the obituary notices which appeared in the Gardeners'' 

 Chronicle (April 15, 1899, p. 239), the Naturalist for May, 1899, 

 and the Halifax Naturalist, Vol. IV., pp. 31-36. Born at 

 Bradford on June 21st, 1858, he died at Halifax on the first of 

 April, 1899. His name has been utilised by Mr. Massee to 

 designate a new genus Soppittiella, and a new species Dasyscypha 

 Soppittii, and Mr. Crossland has named a species Thielavia 

 Soppittii, so that his name will always be associated with the 

 parish he came to love so well. His botanical collections and 

 books have been purchased by members of the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union for presentation to the Union, to form the 

 nucleus of a Soppitt Memorial Library of Mycological 

 Literature. 



