82 ISABELLA GIFFORD. 



Isabella Gifford was born at Swansea about 1823. During her 

 early life she resided with her parents in France, in Jersey, and at 

 Falmouth (where her only brother died) ; they finally settled at 

 Minehead about forty years ago. From both father and mother she 

 inherited strong moral and intellectual powers. Mrs. Gifford was a 

 rarely gifted and most cultured woman, and herself educated her 

 daughter. But the scientific bent which very early in life Miss Gifford 

 developed was quite her own, — she had no individual instruction 

 or guidance in the pursuit which she followed most unweariedly 

 throughout her life. She had full encouragement from her parents, 

 but she was quite self-taught, Mrs. Gilford's mind being of a 

 literary turn, with no admixture of the scientific. 



The extremely simple mode of life which was characteristic of 

 the family was very favourable to this lover of Nature, who studied 

 and explored, and scrambled and botanised wherever her fancy led 

 her in the neighbourhood of her home ; from Blue Anchor Bay to 

 Bossington Point, on the shore ; and, inland, over the heights and 

 in the valleys ; or nearer home, where the woods and banks and 

 hedges formed, for the most part, her " happy hunting ground." 

 Although seaweeds were her favourite study, Miss Gifford had that 

 general acquaintance with British plants which was more general 

 among women of one or two generations back than it is in these 

 days, when the knowledge of structure rather than of plants is more 

 in vogue, and when the paths of botany are thickly spread with the 

 thorns of Roses and Brambles. In 1855 she contributed to the 



Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaological and Natural History 

 Society (vi. 181-7) "Notices of the rare and most remarkable plants 

 in the neighbourhood of Dunster, Blue Anchor, Minehead, &c." 

 But, like all those whose names were mentioned in our first 

 paragraph, with the exception of Mrs. Gatty, Miss Gifford was not 

 well known as an author. Her only independent publication was 

 The Marine Botanist, which appeared in 1848, and was apparently 

 well received, as by 1853 it had reached a third edition, " greatly 

 improved and enlarged " — a statement which evidently means more 

 than it does in some cases, judging from a review of the first edition 

 (which we have not seen) in the Annals arid Magazine of Natural 

 History for 1848, and from the author's preface to the third. 

 The help afforded by Miss Gifford and other ladies to Harvey is 

 acknowledged in the preface to his Phycologia (1851). 



In 1853 she contributed 'Observations on the Marine Flora of 

 Somerset' to the Proceedings already mentioned (iv. 117), which 

 include critical notes upon Nitophyllnm, Ectocarpua, and other 

 genera. In 1858 she joined the Botanical Exchange Club, then 

 established at Thirsk, of which she was an active contributing 

 member, and her connection with it continued until 1871. Her 

 only contribution to our pages was a short note on the tetraspores 

 of Seirospora Grijfithsiana (Journ. Bot. 1871, 113). 



We have to thank Mr. E. M. Holmes for the following note : — 

 " Twenty-five years ago I sent Miss Gifford a few seaweeds to 

 name. I had just begun to collect, and she was, I think, my 

 earliest correspondent on the subject. She was also interested in 



