Feb. 1894.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 101 



after years. During one of his summer vacations, when 

 passing over Slingsby Moor, not far from his native place, 

 he met with one of the uncinate Hypna in splendid fruit. 

 His love of plants, from which he had been partially 

 weaned for a short time by his mathematical studies, 

 returned with such force, tfhat he vowed on the sjiot that 

 henceforth the study of plants should be the great object 

 of his life. Hitherto he seems to have been a lover, now 

 he becomes wedded to his favourite science. 



For four years, January 1841 to December 1844, his 

 journals show that he took every opportunity to explore 

 the district surrounding the city of York, and especially 

 the extensive unenclosed commons ; and in his vacations 

 to take more extended and distant rambles. In June 

 1841 he spent some days in the North York Moors, and 

 in December of that year he went into Wharfedale. In 

 the summer of 1842 he visited Dr. Thomas Taylor at 

 Dunkerron, in the west of Ireland, and botanised in that 

 rich district for about a month, and at Christmas spent 

 some days collecting in Eskdale and other valleys near 

 Whitby. In the months of June and July of 1843 he 

 made a three weeks' expedition to Teesdale, which formed 

 the subject of an excellent paper to the Botanical Society 

 of Edinburgh, opening out for the first time the great 

 richness of the flora of that valley, on which occasion he 

 discovered AmUi/stegium Sprucei, Bruch. In December 

 of that year he went to Forge Valley and other places 

 in the neighbourhood of Scarboro'. Once more, in the 

 summer of 1844 he spent ten. days in Derbyshire. In the 

 three years and a half mentioned he made fully one 

 hundred botanical excursions, some of which we have seen 

 extended over several days. 



On 1st May 1845 he left England for the Pyrenees, 

 going and returning by Paris, where he met Dufour. He 

 did not return until the 10th of April 1846. His stay in 

 the Pyrenees enabled him to secure a rich harvest of mosses 

 and hepaticie, and these plants were the subject of a second 

 and more important paper communicated to the Edinburgh ' 

 Botanical Society. 



The next important step in the life of Dr. Spruce was 

 his determination to explore the Amazon and some of its 



