(139) 
HENEY HAEOLD WELCH PEAESON, F.E.S. 
A familiar figure with an almost boyish gait no longer tramps the 
Avenue, no longer climbs the winding stair, no longer tends The Gardens. 
Henry Harold Welch Pearson lies at rest on the Cycad hill at 
Kirstenbosch. 
It is hard, indeed, to contemplate this untimely loss, not only to South 
Africa, but to the botanical world in general, for the name of Pearson will 
for all time be associated with the great Cycad family, the Gnetales, and 
South Africa's National G-ardens. 
Pearson came to South Africa, a comparatively young man, some 
fourteen years ago ; he has thus laid down a strenuous and fruitful life with 
an all too sudden suddenness. 
Born at Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, in 1870, he died in Cape Town after 
a short illness on November 3, 1916. He was educated privately and 
matriculated in the University of London in 1889. 
Entering the University of Cambridge as a non-collegiate student in 
October, 1893, he secured a First Class in Part I of the Natural Science 
Tripos, and entered Christ's College in 1896. In Part II of the Natural 
Science Tripos he again obtained a First Class, and was elected a Founda- 
tion Scholar and Darwin Prizeman at his college. Almost immediately after 
this he proceeded to Ceylon as a Wort's Travelling Scholar of the Univer- 
sity, and spent some six months there chiefly engaged on oecological studies. 
For his work in Ceylon he was awarded the Walsingham medal. He 
returned to Cambridge in 1898, and was appointed Assistant Curator of 
the University Herbarium under Marshall Ward, for whom he always bore 
the greatest admiration and respect. Very soon after this he was elected 
Frank Smart Student in Botany at Gonville and Caius College. 
In 1899 he was appointed Assistant for India in the Herbarium at Kew- 
In 1903 he came to South Africa to fill the newly-founded Harry Bolus 
Chair of Botany at the South African College, Cape Town, and ten years 
later he combined this post with that of Honorary Director of the National 
Botanic Gardens at Kirstenbosch. 
The field of investigation covered by Pearson includes work of first-class 
importance dealing with histology, physiology, oecology, and geographical 
distribution ; in fact, it was characteristic of him that he always attempted 
to look at the problem he had in hand from all points of view. 
His first published paper dealt with the anatomy of the seedling of 
