278 
P.R.S., and in June of the same year he was elected Frank 
Smart Student in Botany at Gonville and Caius College. 
Herbarium at Kew, and in November of that year he was 
awarded the Walsingham gold medal for original investigations 
by the University of Cambridge, in which he proceeded to the 
degree of XN 
appointed an Assistant on the Kew staff in succession to Mr. 
I. H. Burkill. In 1903 he was appointed by the South African 
College Council to the Chair of Botany, now by a new foundation 
known as the Harry Bolus Professorship, in the South African 
College, Cape Town (A.B. 1903, p. 30). In 1901 he was elected 
a Fellow of the Linnean Society; in 1907 he proceeded to the 
degree of Sc.D., Cambridge, and in 1913 he became Honorar 
Director of the National Botanic Garden at Kirstenbosch, near 
Cape Town. 
Already a young botanist of great promise, Pearson found 
from the outset of his South African career a congenial field of 
activity. He entered with zest into the work of botanical explor- 
ation, in which field he had already made for himself a reputa- 
tion that will live along with those which attach to the names 
Of unberg, Burchell, Baines and Schinz. His journeys, 
and in some 
instances with the assistance of scientific organisations, notably 
more especially the Welwitschia Desert. The singular plant to 
which this region owes its name was the subject of especial stady 
and afforded material for some of his weightiest contributions 
d 
uring recent hate he devoted especial attention to the study 
e to take in the establishment of the 
arden at Kirstenbosch, on the slopes of 
orary directorship of which was fittingly 
He was al 
Table Mountain, the hon 
entrusted to his care, also the moving spirit in the 
