FREDERIK WELWITSCH? 
FREDERIK WetwitscH, M. D., died in London, on the 
20th of October last, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He 
was a native of Carinthia ; was educated at Vienna ; was com- 
missioned by the Wiirtemberg Unio Itineraria to collect the 
plants of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands ; but on reach- 
ing Lisbon and finding good employment there, he made 
Portugal the field of his investigations, until, in 1850, he was 
sent by the Portuguese government to explore the natural 
history of its possessions on the west coast of Africa. His 
exploration of Angola and Benguela was rewarded by the 
discovery of more highly curious plants, probably, than any 
other that has been undertaken since Australia was opened to 
botanists; among them, and strangest of all, the genus which 
commemorates the discoverer, Welwitschia mirabilis, which 
Dr. Hooker, who described and illustrated it, does ‘‘ not hesi- 
tate to consider the most wonderful, in a botanical point of 
view, that has been brought to light during the present cen- 
tury.” Perhaps the limitation in the latter clause of the 
sentence is needless. This inhabits a most arid waste. In 
another district, under almost opposite conditions, Welwitsch 
had the good fortune to find the only Cactaceous plant indig- 
enous out of America, namely, hipsalis Cassytha, and in a 
lake a new and most remote habitat of our Brasenia peltata! 
In his ‘ Sertum Angolense,” a splendid memoir published by 
the Linnzan Society, with twenty-five plates, some of his most 
interesting discoveries are described ; but the still unpublished 
portions of his collections must furnish most important con- 
tributions to the “ Flora of Tropical Africa,” now in progress 
under the orders of the British Colonial department and the 
editorship of Professor Oliver of Kew. It is to be hoped 
that they are to be more fully available for this flora than 
they have thus far been. 
1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., vy. 396. (1873.) 
