Ixiv Obituary Notices of Fellovjs deceased. 



to benefit by his expeditions, and led to the publication of important results 

 obtained from research along other lines of enquiry than those which 

 appealed more particularly to himself. The rapidity with which he dealt 

 with the material collected on several expeditions and the thoroughness of 

 the work compel admiration, especially when one remembers the small 

 amount of leisure at his disposal and the ever-widening range of his 

 activities. Pearson handled the difficult problems suggested in the course 

 of his researches with remarkable skill and, in dealing with the criticisms of 

 other botanists, he always preserved a true sense of proportion and con- 

 sistently adopted a fair-minded and scientific attitude. 



In reviewing Pearson's scientific life there is a danger of underrating the 

 general botanical value of his exploration work in Damaraland, Namaqualand, 

 Angola, Bushmanland, and other regions. His researches into the morphology 

 and phylogeny of Welwitschia and Gnetum naturally occupy a prominent 

 place in an account of his achievements, and his determination to obtain 

 material of these plants was a primary motive of some of his expeditions. 

 The Gnetales were not by any means the only objective. He devoted himself 

 with extraordinary energy to the investigation in the widest sense of the vegeta- 

 tion of the countries through which he travelled. As he fully recognised, the 

 excellent results of his botanical expeditions were in part due to the generous 

 contributions by the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Fund, the Government Grant 

 Committee of the Royal Society, and other bodies. He made large collections 

 of herbarium specimens and supplied the Eoyal Gardens, Kew, the Garden of 

 his old University, and other centres with many living plants. As his own 

 published papers show — as well as those of other botanists entrusted with the 

 description of his material — he discovered many new plants and accumulated 

 a large body of facts bearing on the distribution and ecology of South African 

 vegetation. The dedication of the volume of the ' Botanical Magazine ' for 

 1914 to Pearson is a graceful and well-earned tribute to his success as an 

 explorer. 



Pearson visited Damaraland four times ; on the first three occasions he 

 was hospitably entertained by the German officials and on the last visit at the 

 beginning of 1916 he was the guest of the Headquarters Staff of the Union 

 Forces. Pearson had a strong desire to take some share in the war and offered 

 his services to the Cape Government ; his last expedition was, in some degree, 

 war-work, as General Botha encouraged him to make a survey of the recently 

 acquired territory. In a letter written in April, 1915, he said: " I have felt 

 a little easier in my mind since I volunteered for local defence. I am now 

 enrolled as a mounted infantryman, my official title being Trooper Pearson, 

 which gives me some measure of satisfaction." 



In letters during his travels he spoke of the fascination of following the 

 changes in the vegetation in the course of a long journey and from time to 

 time referred to progress made in the solution of many interesting phyto- 

 geographical problems. Had he lived a few years longer there is no doubt he 

 would have worked up his material into a connected whole and, knowing how 



