102 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [ Sess. LXXV. 
His father was in the service of his Grace the Duke of 
Northumberland, and young Panthing, having early shown 
an interest in flowers, entered the Duke's service in his 
sixteenth year as an apprentice gardener at Syon House. 
After three years’ preliminary training there, he was 
admitted to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, at the age 
of nineteen; on 5th July 1875. He received promotion at 
Kew on 7th February 1876, and left on 14th July 1877 to 
take up a post in the Royal Gardens at Windsor. 
His services at Kew had been such that when, in December 
1878, a vacancy was announced in the staff of the Govern- 
ment Cinchona Plantations in Bengal, Mr. Panthing was 
recommended as a suitable candidate, and was given the 
appointment of Assistant in the Cinchona Department in 
1879. He had hardly been a year in India when the post 
of Curator in the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, fell 
vacant, and he was selected to fill this position. Another 
year had hardly passed, however, before the post of Senior 
Assistant in the Cinchona Department also fell vacant, and 
Mr. Panthing, whose health had showed signs of impair- 
ment at Calcutta, was transferred once more to the 
Cinchona Plantation. Here the rest of his Indian service 
was spent, eventually being promoted to the position of 
Deputy Superintendent. 
During the whole of the time he had served in the 
Cinchona department, Mr. Panthing had devoted much of 
his leisure to botanical studies, and more especially to work 
on the natural family Orchidaceew, of the Indian species of 
which, and especially the species from North-Eastern India, 
he had acquired a very extensive knowledge, which he 
increased not only by study of the living plants he brought 
together, but by making botanical journeys in Independent 
Sikkim and in Assam. A natural gift for drawing he 
cultivated, with what excellent results may be judged from 
the illustrations prepared by him from living plants for 
the eighth volume of the “Annals of the Royal Botanic 
Garden, Calcutta,” which is devoted to a monograph of 
the Orchids of the Sikkim Himalayas, of which Sir 
George King supplied the letterpress, while Mr. Panthing 
supplied the drawings. The talent, industry, and skill to 
which these illustrations testify were worthily recognised 
