VISITS TO ABERDEEN FRIENDSHIP AND BOTANY. 



Mr. Taylor recalls the time when John, having greatly 

 conquered the common plants, began the more difficult 

 Carices or rushes, willows, and grasses, and, about 1860, the 

 still more occult cryptogamic plants ; and he admired the 

 remarkable ardour with which John prosecuted the study of 

 all these thorny departments of the subject. Mr. Taylor 

 was deeply impressed, if not astonished, at his growing 

 mastery of Botany, for John groped his slow but steady and 

 irresistible way amidst difficulties very few have had to 

 encounter. As he says, "John's love of plants, his struggles, 

 and his own characteristic ways of doing his botanical work 

 were of no common type." Mr. Taylor's yearly return from 

 the Polar seas, during the five years he went thither, was an 

 event always earnestly looked forward to by his old friend, 

 in order that he might inspect the new and strange treasures 

 he brought back ; duplicates of the plants being always 

 gladly presented to him, and delightedly received and added 

 to the herbarium at Droughsburn. 



Mr. Taylor went occasionally to the Vale of Alford to 

 see John and his plants. He accompanied Dr. Sutherland * 

 a young Aberdeen physician, and an earnest botanist, 

 who wrote several articles on the subject when he traversed 

 the region, gathering materials for the new edition of Dr. 

 Dickie's "Flora" of 1860. Sutherland had heard of Duncan 

 through Mr. Taylor, and the two friends called at Droughs- 

 burn, got many new localities from Duncan, afterwards 

 embodied in the book, and visited several of the habitats 

 of the rarer species under John's guidance. A letter from 



* Dr. Sutherland, who was a promising scientist, afterwards entered 

 the service of the Oriental Steam Navigation Co., and died young, in 

 South Africa. 



