]922-23.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 193 



we are faced with exceptions which raise the question afresh. 

 Here we have the record of a youth scarcely out of his teens, 

 an Arts Graduate, a Science Graduate, a Vans Dunlop scholar, 

 a member of the Transit of Venus Expedition, a medical 

 student who during his father's illness conducts the Botanical 

 Classes with entire responsibility, and is never put out of his 

 stride, graduates in Medicine in due course, without haste, 

 without rest, and far did he travel. Such a one comes almost 

 fully panoplied — no mere gift of taking pains. I do not know 

 that he was addicted to taking pains in the narrow sense, 

 his mind was a solvent of power with keen insight and driving 

 force. 



He was gifted with a sound constitution. I confess I 

 knew him not in his prime, not till the middle " forties." But 

 an excursion to a Highland Ben with Balfour in the closing 

 years of last century was a thing to be remembered. Like 

 his brother botanist Trail, he led the way at the pace and with 

 the endurance of a hill shepherd. What corner of Scotland did 

 he not traverse, and what a vivid recollection of the exact 

 locality of the wanted species ! And this was no mere record 

 of isolated facts which he kept in store, but a picture of the 

 grouping, of the relationships, to which a detailed study of 

 the ecology could add but little. From his tours abroad he 

 brought the same complete conspectus, the facts seemed 

 mirrored in his brain, the individual plants were all linked in 

 their associations. 



His advent on the scene was at a happy hour for Botany. 

 The whole science was in process of change. The old concep- 

 tion of a great botanist was one who knew the Latin names 

 of many plants. The age of aridity of systematic Botany 

 in its least" alluring guise was rapidly disappearing. The 

 botanist was previously in danger of becoming a traditional 

 type — what Schleiden satirised as a merchant of Latin and 

 a collector of dried hay. Balfour's acquaintance with the 

 older school was profound. From it he took what was best, 

 but it never dominated his outlook. It gave him instead one 

 more angle from which to view the broad expanse of nature's 

 workings. His association in early years with Strasburger, 

 with Sachs, with de Bary was of great moment in his fashion- 

 ing. It led him to the establishment of the Laboratory as 

 the essential scientific need of the day. He was a great 



TRANS. KOT SOC. EDIN. VOL. XXVIII. 16 



