— 39 — 



V. Drepanocladiis revolvens Sw. var. intermedius (Lindb.) Ren. a very fine 

 looking moss with nicely curled or circinate leaves, occurs in a deep peat bog at 

 Oka,- P. Q. in company with Hypnum stellafum. 



VI. Drepanodfidus scorpioides L. occurs in the same habitat as the preceding, 

 growing with Hypnum giganteum. It has stout stems which are slightly secund. 



Seminary of Philosophy, Montreal, Canada. 



N JOHN MACOUN 



A. LeRoy Ant)rews 



The following biographical facts represent a brief abstract of a memoir 

 prepared by W. T. Macoun, sole surviving son of the deceased, for publication 

 in the Canadian Field Naturalist, for a manuscript copy of which I am indebted 

 directly to Dr. Jennings and through him to the author. 



John Macoun, long known to botanists as Naturalist to the Geological Sur- 

 vey of Canada, died on July i8, 1920, in his ninetieth year, his older son, James 

 M. Macoun, for many years associated with him in the botanical work of the 

 Canadian Geological Survey, having died a few months before him. The older 

 Macoun was Scotch-Irish, born at Maralin 'in the vicinity of Belfast. In 1850 

 his family migrated to Canada, settling in the forest-region of Ontario, where 

 they cleared a farm. The future botanist began his career by teaching in a 

 country school, and after a course in a Normal School became head of the public 

 schools in Belleville, Ontario, with which place much of his early botanical 

 activity is associated. In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Botany and 

 Geology in Albert College, Belleville, in 1881 Botanist to the Dominion Govern- 

 ment, by which he had already been engaged for part of his time since 1872, in 

 1887 Assistant Director and Naturalist of the Geological Survey, which last 

 position he held until his death, though he retired from active official duties in 

 1912. 



His botanical collecting was in many respects pioneer work and has con- 

 tributed in no little degree to the clearing up of facts of plant-distribution in 

 British America. In 1872 he was botanist of the Fleming expedition, whose 

 problem was to explore a route for the Canadian Pacific railway; in 1875 he was 

 botanist with the Selwyn expedition to the Peace River region and the Rockies; 

 in 1879, 1880, and 1881 he further explored the prairie region of the northwest 

 and became an enthusiastic prophet of its future wheat-growing possibilities; 

 in 1905 he made his way along the route of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway to 

 the Yukon Territory. In fact in the years (1882-1912) of his residence at Ottawa 

 he was nearly every summer engaged in collecting and exploring in some part 

 of British America. During the last years of his life he was still busily occupied 

 ^vith botanical observations on Vancouver Island. 



The record of his botanical collections, so far as at present accessible, is to 

 be found in his "Catalogue of Canadian Plants," published in seven parts from 



