108 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



living plants to Mr. Arthur Bennett, an acknowledged authority 

 on the genus, whose help he always greatly valued and who refers 

 to Fryer (Bot. Exch. Club Eeport for 1884, p. Ill) as his "acute 

 friend," and quotes from his observations. The many forms of 

 Potamogeton which grew about Chatteris, some of w^hich could not 

 be determined from any existing manual of British botany, no 

 doubt in the first instance led Fryer to specialize on the genus, 

 the general flora of the district having been sufficiently examined. 

 He became more and more interested in the genus, and finally 

 devoted himself entirely to it, growing many species in his tanks 

 and watching their development both in his garden and in their 

 native haunts at different times of the year. He corresponded 

 with all the best foreign authorities on the genus, and was an 

 especially valued correspondent of Dr. Morong, the American 

 Fotamogeton specialist. 



From this time until 1899 the pages of this Journal bear 

 ample testimony to the enthusiasm with which Fryer prosecuted 

 his investigations, in recognition of which the Linnean Society in 

 1897 elected him an Associate. He was fortunate in finding in 

 Eobert Morgan, who until his death in 1900 drew most of the 

 plates for this Journal, a collaborator who shared his interest in 

 *' Pots." — his pet diminutive for his favourite plants. Fryer's 

 warm and well deserved tribute to Morgan's work will be found 

 in Journ. Bot. 1900, 490 ; it was in conjunction with Morgan 

 as artist that he produced the fine quarto work. The Potamo- 

 getons of the British Isles, of which the first instalment appeared 

 in 1898, and which occupied the remainder of his life, remaining, 

 unfortunately for science, incomplete at his death. A notice 

 of the book was given in this Journal for 1898, p. 354 ; it 

 enters elaborately into questions relating to the species, varieties, 

 forms, and hybrids of the genus, and is a monument of carefulness 

 and observation. 



In connection with his monograph, or rather as leading up to 

 it and providing material for it. Fryer had accumulated a vast 

 mass of specimens which he mounted with great care. Some 

 years ago one of us corresponded with him as to the possibility 

 of his Potamogeton herbarium, on the completion of his work, 

 finding a resting-place — as will now be the case — in the National 

 Herbarium, but the view which at that time prevailed as to the 

 incorporation of all specimens in one series prevented his enter- 

 taining the notion. 



"The few botaoists who have glanced at my collection" (he says) 

 " — no one has looked through a tenth part of it — all say it would be 

 deprived of its special value if mixed with other specimens, or altered in 

 any way. ... In some form or other the collection will probably come to 

 the Museum, but if it is to be mixed it would be better for me to reduce 

 the specimens by about nine-tenths, and so let the remaining thousand 

 specimens represent the whole. I really do not know how many speci- 

 mens I have ; the drying-press numbers run to about 3000, and some of 

 them have ten or more sheets of reserved specimens. Dr. Tiselius's 

 contributions probably fill 500 sheets. When the collection is looked 

 over by anyone who has a month or two to spare, my reputation for 



