84 THE LATE DR. BOSWELL. 



St. Andrew's. In his later years it was always a source of regret 

 that he was not able to carry out a plan which had been proposed 

 of revising the text of i English Botany ' and printing it as a book 

 without the plates. From 1870 to 1875 he managed the distri- 

 butions of the Exchange Club and drew up the Annual Eeports, all 

 of which will be found in the pages of this Journal. About 1875 

 his health began to fail, and he gradually felt his botanical corre- 

 spondence more and more of an effort. He had two slight attacks 

 of paralysis, and for the last two years was a complete invalid. 



Dr. Boswell died on the 29th of January, and his coffin was 

 carried, covered with snowdrops and Christmas roses, the last his 

 favourite flower, to the ancestral vault of the Boswell family at 

 Kinghorn. A portrait of him appeared in the 'Illustrated London 

 News' on February 11th. J# G . Baker . 



with 



print, the following copy of what must have been one of the last 

 botanical letters ever written by Dr. Boswell. It is interesting as 

 showing that the writer retained to the last his interest in botanical 



studies : 



" Balmuto, Kirkcaldy, Fife, N.B., 



M 19th January, 1888. 



"Dear Mr. Bailey,— Thanks for the 'Botanical Record Club 

 Report ' ; I was much pleased to read Dr. Lees's note on the 

 Cannock Chase Vaccinium. I wish some one would send me a 

 specimen, but now I have no claim. I never ask a discoverer for 

 a specimen, as I am not doing anything for Botany. ... If among 

 the duplicates of the ■ Botanical Exchange Club ' there should ever 

 be Carex trinervis (much wanted), C. salina var. Kattegattensis, and 

 Calamagrostis strigosa, I should much like to have them. Cer -ostium 

 arcticnm var., from Shetland, in fruit, and C. ' longirostre' are, 

 I suppose, hopeless. I got a number of garden plants brought in, 

 and dried them, but have not been able to get them labelled. Who 

 is distributor this year ? Perhaps I could get Senccio spathul 'if 'alius 

 and Pyrmjenmca done by the end of the month. I have a number 

 of others from garden, and escaped or even naturalised ; also a lot 

 of Sparganiums in fruit (the most troublesome plant I ever dried)— 

 fruit more dense and with less shoulder than the South English 

 plant; but Mr. Beeby says they are certainly S. rmmmnn, so use- 

 less I suppose. Prof. Archangeli, of Pisa, author of new ' Moss 

 Flora of Italy/ writes to me wishing to exchange Italian Mosse for 

 Scotch and English. Can you help him ? I cannot. I am confined 

 to my bedroom, mostly to bed, with ulcerated leg,— two years,— 

 from valvular disease of the heart, producing complete bodily and 

 mental failing. 



11 Yours very truly, 



" (Signed) John T. Boswell."] 



