1888-89.] Professor Alexander Dickson. 511 



increases the knowledge of that human anatomy which is 

 the foundation of the art of medicine and surgery. 



His relations with the students of the university soon 

 became of the most cordial description. His painstaking 

 earnestness as a teacher, his obvious desire to further their 

 botanical studies, the knowledge that soon spread of the 

 hours spent in preparation for his class, and especially in 

 the preparation of the wonderfully skOful and instructive 

 illustrations that from day to day appeared on the blackboard, 

 and the numberless evidences of his courteous and generous 

 disposition, gained for him, not only respect, but also warm 

 and grateful affection. 



Professor Dickson's first botanical paper was published 

 in 1857, while he was yet a student of medicine. During 

 the following twenty-nine years his activity as a worker 

 was shown by the publication of upwards of fifty papers. 

 Many of them rank as masterpieces of accurate and elaborate 

 description, and of philosophical conceptions of structure. 

 A glance over the appended list shows his great partiality 

 for subjects bearing on development and morphology, in 

 which departments of botany he acquired the position of 

 an eminent authority. In confirmation of these statements, 

 it is sufficient to cite his gi'aduation thesis, for which he 

 obtained a gold medal, " On the Development of the Flower, 

 and especially the Pistil, in the Caryophyllacece^' and his 

 papers on the Morphology of the Eeproductive Organs of the 

 Coniferce, on the Embryo and its Appendages in Tropccolum, 

 on the Embryology and Development of the Flower of 

 Pvngiiicula, on the Spiral Arrangements of the Cones of 

 Pinus pinaster, and on the Morphology and Structure of 

 the Pitchers in Cephalotus and Nepenthes. 



On account of his eminence as a botanist and teacher, 

 he was made honorary M.D. of the University of Dublin, 

 LL.D. of the University of Glasgow, Fellow of the Linnsean 

 Society, and President of the Botanical Society of Edin- 

 burgh. 



Professor Dickson took much interest in matters outside 

 of his immediate professorial duties and scientific pursuits. 

 He was a Conservative in State and Church politics. On 

 various occasions he actively supported candidates for parlia- 

 mentary representation. A consistent Free Churcliman, he 



TRANS. EOT. SOC. VOL. XVII. 2 il 



