78 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE EARLY BOTANISTS 



history of botany. He does not say much about localities, 

 but mentions a few plants as growing near Darlington, and is 

 the first to record the Ladies Slipper ( Cypripedmm Calceolus) 

 from Castle Eden Dene. He was a native of Darlington, a 

 member of the Society of Friends, and followed his father's 

 business as a linen manufacturer. He died of pulmonary 

 consumption at the early age of 38. The manuscript of his 

 flora and his herbarium, in three folio volumes, were lately in 

 the possession of his descendants. The late Edward Capper 

 Robson, of Sunderland, was his grandson. 



Edward Robson, of Darlington, born 1763, died 1813, 

 nephew of Stephen Robson, was one of the most active 

 English botanists of his generation. Sowerby, to whom he 

 sent living specimens of Pingidcula vulgaris and other plants 

 to be drawn for " English Botany," calls him " a very assiduous 

 and accurate botanist." When the Linnean Society was 

 founded in 1789 he was the only representative of Northum- 

 berland and Durham on its list of members, having been 

 chosen as one of the original " Associates," the number of 

 which is limited to fifty. He printed for private circulation 

 a list of rarer Durham plants under the title of " Plantae 

 rariores agro Dunelmensi indigenae." This is often quoted by 

 Turner and Dillwyn and in Winch's "Botanists' Guide." His 

 field of observation was the low-lying eastern part of the 

 county about Darlington, Durham, Sunderland, and Hartle- 

 pool. He contributed to the third volume of the Transactions 

 of the Linnaean Society a paper illustrated by a figure of a 

 new kind of Currant he had found on the banks of the Tees 

 between Pierce Bridge and Gainford, which he called Ribes 

 spicattwi. He is often cited as an authority for localities of 

 Fungi near Darlington in the second volume of Winch's 

 " Botanists' Guide," and contributed a figure of Geasta to the 

 "Gentleman's Magazine," February, 1792. Spach named after 

 him the genus Robsonia in Grosstdariacece, which is kept up by 

 Bentham and Hooker as a section of Ribes. He died at 

 Tottenham, and was buried beside George Fox in Bunhill 

 Fields. 



