368 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. [Sess. Lxxi1. 
GEORGE HOoNINGTON Ports. 
George Honington Potts was born in London in 1830. 
He came to Scotland in his youth, and had been in business 
in Edinburgh as a painter and decorator for many years. 
He seems to have had a natural taste for the cultivation of 
plants, and when he lived in Edinburgh, at the end of 
Potterrow, he grew grapes in his house. Nearly forty years 
ago he removed to Fettes Mount, Lasswade, Midlothian, 
where he constructed on a well-watered bank on the east 
side of the house a rock garden which became famous, and 
was visited by many botanists and horticulturists. I had the 
privilege of seeing it in 1872, and again, along with several 
Fellows and members of the Edinburgh Field Naturalists’ 
Club in 1906, and was struck by the extent to which it had 
been developed as the years had passed. Mr. Potts had 
some business relations with Mr. George Maw of Benthall, 
Kenley, Surrey, the monographer of the genus Crocus, 
and a Fellow of this Society. It was his intercourse with 
Mr. Maw that induced him to take so much interest in the 
cultivation of plants. He was specially interested in Saxi- 
frages, Sedums, and Sempervivums, of which he had a large 
collection. He raised many seedling saxifrages, particularly 
those of a dwarf habit. One of the best of these was from 
Saxifraga muscoides, and he named it Sazifraga Lindsayi, 
after Mr. Robert Lindsay. His plants were grown all massed 
together, and though his quick eye often detected a hybrid, 
he unfortunately was hardly ever able to identify the parents. 
He became a Fellow of the Society in 1873, and was a 
frequent exhibitor at the meetings. Some of his more recent 
exhibits were :— 
LIST OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY. 
Specimen of Saxifraya hypnowdes densa (p. 127). 
Specimen of Saxifraga Cotyledon (p. 154). 
Specimen of Rodgersia podophylla (p. 154). Transactions, vol. xix., 
1893. 
Exhibition of Seedling Saxifrages and Cut Blooms of hybrid Primulas. 
Transactions, vo]. xxi., 1900 ; Appendix vii. 
Exhibition of Saxifrages grown by himself, and of some natural 
Crosses. Transactions, vol. xxil., 1905 ; Appendix xxvii. 
He became a member of the Scottish Alpine Botanical 
Club in 1876, and during an excursion to Dalwhinnie in 
