TRANSACTIONS 
OF THE 
BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 
SESSION LXXV. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—In rising to address you from 
the Chair on the occasion of the opening of the seventy- 
fifth session of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, it is 
perhaps hardly necessary for me to offer you an apology 
for the fact that these remarks of mine cannot be on a 
scientific subject connected with botany, because you all 
know that I am not a man of science, far less a scientific 
botanist qualified to take up and deal with a botanical 
subject in a manner worthy of this learned Society. All 
the more, then, I have felt it a very great honour that 
you should have permitted me, a mere lover and a mere 
grower of plants and flowers, to preside over your meet- 
ings for two sessions, and to do what little has been in 
my power in taking an interest in the work and the 
welfare of the Society. My remarks to-night, then, can 
only deal with the position of the Society, and the 
changes that Time has brought upon us, and the work 
which, as a Society, we have, during the past session, 
been enabled to do. 
In the first place, it is right that I should refer to the 
loss sustained by the Society in the death of its Patron, 
King Edward VII. As you will remember, an address of 
condolence to King George V. was submitted and directed 
to be sent to the Secretary for Scotland. Due acknowledg- 
TRANS. BOT. SOC, EDIN, VOL. XXIV. 8 
