Linnaan Society, 417 



Among our Foreign Members, the Society and the scientific world 

 have sustained a severe loss by the death of 



Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher, Professor of Botany in the Univer- 

 sity of Vienna, and Director of the Botanic Garden of that city. He 

 was born at Presburg on the 24th of June 1 804, and there acquired 

 his school education. His higher studies were pursued partly at 

 Pesth and partly at Vienna, where in 1823 he became a pupil of the 

 Archiepiscopal Seminary, being then destined for the church. But 

 after the completion of his theological education, and when he had 

 already taken the minor orders, family circumstances determined 

 him to re-enter the secular state in 1826. Two years afterwards he 

 was attached to the Imperial Library at Vienna, and the circum- 

 stances of his parents placed him in a state of easy independence. 

 From the time of his quitting the ecclesiastical profession he devoted 

 himself enthusiastically to the study of natural history, and more 

 especially of botany, and to that of the languages of Eastern Asia, 

 particularly Chinese. In botany he soon acquired so distinguished 

 a reputation as to mark him out for the Keepership of the Herbarium 

 in the Imperial Cabinet of Natural History; and in 1840, on the 

 death of Baron Jacquin, he became Professor of Botany and Director 

 of the Botanic Garden, which establishment he exerted himself 

 greatly to reorganize and improve. 



Of the numerous and important works, which have proceeded from 

 his pen, the • Genera Plantarum ' is that on which his fame will 

 chiefly rest, as a work of immense labour, great research and pro- 

 found botanical science. It will long continue to be a book of 

 standard reference to the systematic botanist, of whose labours it is 

 a constant and indispensable companion. 



In private life Professor Endlicher was a most excellent and 

 amiable man. He died at Vienna on the 28th of March of an apo- 

 plectic attack, caused as some physicians presumed by an effusion of 

 pus from the pars petrosa of the left side into the brain, as he had 

 suffered for many years from a polypus in the ear. On the previous 

 Monday he had received his friends with his usual calmness and 

 serenity, complaining only of a slight headache ; but at midday on 

 Wednesday he lost his speech and became insensible, and about 

 seven o'clock in the evening he ceased to exist, leaving a large circle 

 of warmly attached friends to deplore his premature loss. 



Two Associates have also to be added to the list of deaths : — 



Mr. David Cameron and Mr. William M'Nab. 



At the election which subsequently took place, the Lord Bishop 

 of Norwich was re-elected President ; William Yarrell, Esq., was 

 elected Treasurer ; John Joseph Bennett, Esq., Secretary ; and 

 Richard Taylor, Esq., Under-Secretary. The following five Fellows 

 were elected into the Council in the room of others going out, viz. : 

 Thomas Bell, Esq., Francis Boott, M.D., John Gould, Esq., John 

 Hogg, Esq., and Richard Horsman Solly, Esq. 



Among the presents announced by the Secretary were the follow- 

 ing :— 



The herbarium of the late Thomas Walter, Esq., author of the 

 'Flora Caroliniana ;' presented by John Eraser, Esq., A.L.S. 



Ann, ^ Mag, N. Hist, Ser. 3. VoLy. 27 



