Feb. 1894.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 105 



regret. I have not looked through the microscope for 

 many weeks." 



On 11th May 1871 he wrote: "It has been very 

 hard times with me all this year. Nevertheless, I lately 

 plucked up courage to disinter my microscope, after it had 

 been out of sight full eighteen months, and I have gone 

 thoroughly over all my South American Plagiochilas, have 

 described all the forms, and have made up my mind as far 

 as possible about the ' species.' The result has been to 

 make me more Darwinian than ever." 



During the last nine years he was at Welburn, and in 

 this broken-down state of health he examined all his South 

 American palms, and the result appeared in his " Palmar 

 AmazoniCcT," a hrochure of nearly 200 pages, in which are 

 described 118 species, more than half of which are new to 

 science. The first portion of his • " Hepatica? Araazonicte 

 et Andinae " was written at Welburn and completed at 

 Coneysthorpe, where he lived for the last seventeen years 

 of his life. The " Hepatic^ Amazonicffi et Aridina?," a 

 book of nearly 600 pages, contains elaborate descriptions 

 in Latin of upwards of 700 species and varieties, two- 

 thirds of which were new to science. This may be said to 

 be by far the most important of his numerous works, from 

 a purely scientific point of view ; and as a proof of its 

 merits, leading hepaticologists of other countries have 

 adopted to a large extent the classification of an " illustre 

 et venere maitre." It has been spoken of as one of the 

 remarkable books of this century ; and it is a work the 

 publication of which justifies the existence of such bodies 

 as the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. After its com- 

 pletion he had a slight apoplectic seizure. For about two 

 months he never once used the microscope, and, to use his 

 own words, " for the shortest letter I had to avail myself 

 of an amanuensis. I knew exactly what I wanted to 

 write, but my hand refused to write it. I am now writing 

 almost a mon ordinaire, but I cannot write much at a time." 



It has been observed that through misfortune he was in 

 straitened circumstances when he arrived in England. 

 This, in combination with the state of his health, in- 

 duced his friend, Mr. Clements Markham, to make repre- 

 sentations to the Encrlish Government with the view of 



