76 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
sixth annual conference at Glasgow. Several excursions took 
place in connection with the conference, and a public exhibition 
was held in the Coal Exchange Buildings, West Regent Street, at 
which a very large and interesting collection of fungi and other 
cryptogamic plants was submitted. The entire arrangements were 
entrusted to a local committee, with Mr. Turner as secretary, and 
their success was very largely due to his enthusiasm and energy. 
Since 1880 he held the appointment of Local Secretary of the 
Society. 
In 1886 he became a prominent member of the Andersonian 
Naturalists’ Society ; and was afterwards elected vice-president 
two years in succession, and president the following two years in 
succession, the date of the last appointment being 8th April, 1891. 
He also acted as editor of the Annals of the Society. He was a 
member of the Geological Society of Glasgow, and took an active 
interest in the local Pen and Pencil Club. 
As an author, his papers are notable for their vigorous style 
and lucid mode of expression. He was perhaps more deeply 
interested in the biological than in the systematic side of botany ; 
for although he had devoted much attention to the latter, and had 
formed an extensive herbarium of British plants, he seemed in 
later years to derive more pleasure from studying the life-history 
of parasitic and other forms of vegetation than in collecting 
specimens or recording localities. Owing to the keenness of his 
sympathies, he was greatly impressed with the beautiful and 
marvellous in nature. This feeling, which is characteristic alike 
of the poet and the naturalist, often found expression in his 
writings. To acute and accurate powers of observation were 
added a faculty of lucid explanation, and a strongly poetic 
instinct ; these enabled him to present scientific facts in a fresh 
and attractive form, which never failed to awaken and retain the 
interest of all who listened to him. 
The following is a list of the papers read by him before the 
various scientific societies with which he was connected :— 
Naiural History Society of Glasgow— 
23rd December, 1879—‘“‘ Vegetable Parasites and Saprophytes.” 
11th May, 1880—‘ The Fertilisation of Plants.” 
22nd June, 1880—‘“ The British Ferns.” 
