3 9 '2 Obituary. 



cheapest pleasures the truest and most precious, and generosity of senti- 

 ment the only mental superiority which ought either to be wished for or 

 admired." 



Adam Afzelius, Professor of Botany at Upsal, — was, I believe, the last 

 of the pupils of Linnaeus, and distinguished, like all the pupils of that 

 great man, for his exact botanical knowledge. He contributed two papers 

 to our Transactions: "On the Botanical History of Trifolium alpestre, 

 medium, and pratense," in 1790; and "Observations on the Genus 

 Pausus," in 1798. He resided in Sierra Leone for several years, and 

 published his principal work, Genera Plantarum Guineensium, in 1804; 

 and several Dissertations on the medicinal plants of that country, and 

 some other works. 



Antoine Laurent De Jussieu, Professor of Botany, Paris, — one of the 

 original foreign members of this Society, author of the Genera Plan- 

 tarum secundum ordines naturales disposita, and many papers in the Annates 

 and Memoircs du Museum d'Histoire Xaturclle, in further illustrations of 

 his views of the natural system. The date of the publication of the Genera 

 Plantarum, in 1789, with the fact that the life of this illustrious man 

 terminated at a very advanced age, without a second edition of that great 

 work, are proofs of the great acquisitions made in botany within the last 

 forty-five years, and of the hopelessness, save from one individual, of the 

 labours of Jussieu being equalled by any single botanist. I do not affect 

 to speak of the merits or reputation of this eminent man; but, if there were 

 any that can be claimed for him above even the superiority of his intellect 

 and learning, they were those of his modesty and his entire freedom from 

 undervaluing the labours of others; and it is delightful to turn to a letter 

 of his to Sir J. E. Smith, and to those of Bernard De Jussieu to Linnaeus, 

 to observe how purely these distinguished men regarded their mutual 

 efforts to advance their favourite science. 



Christian Henry Persoon, A.M. — The name of Persoon will live as one 

 of the highest classical authorities on the Fungi; for his Synopsis Plantarum, 

 published at Paris in 1805, and well characterised by its motto, " In parvo 

 copia," though highly useful in its day, was naturally 7 doomed to be super- 

 seded by later works of a similar kind. He contributed to our Trans- 

 actions, in 1799, a brief notice of a variety of the beech found near 

 Gottingen, which he has termed Quercoides, from the resemblance of its 

 bark to that of the oak. He published, between 1796 and 1800, some of 

 his earlier works on Fungi at Leipsic ; and his Synopsis Methodica Fun- 

 gorum appeared at Gottingen in 1801. This was followed by his Icones 

 pictce rariorum Fungorum, at Paris, in 1803, and the Novce Species 

 Lichenum, in 1811. His collections were purchased by the King of Hol- 

 land, and the annuity he received for them contributed essentially to the 

 comfort of the later years of his life. 



Henri/ Adolph Schroder, Professor of Botany at Gottingen, — author of 

 the Spieitegium Florce Germanices," in 179-1, and Flora Gcrmanica, vol. 1st, 

 1806, and various essays on exotic plants. His Flora Gcrmanica has a 

 high reputation, but it only extends through the class Triandria. There 

 is a very useful elaborate list of the botanical writers of Germany at the 

 commencement. The Flora Brifannica of Smith is spoken of in Germany 

 as inferior only to the Flora Germanka of Schrader. 



[Rev. Sackville Bale of Withyham, Sussex. The Very Rev. Henry Beehe, 

 D. D., Dean of Bristol. Thomas Marquess of Bath, K.G-, fyc. Henry 

 Thomas Colebrooke, Esq., F.R.S., <$-c. Alexander Collie, Esq., Surgeon, 

 R.X. General Joaquim Oliveira. The Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair, Bart., 

 F.R.S. Rev. George Henry Storie, 21. A., of Cambenvell. Mr. White 

 Watson of Bahewell. Deceased members of the Linnaean Society, whose 

 names we have only room to enumerate. — Ed. M. N. H.] 



