28 
FIFTY YEARS OF BOTANY IN BRISTOL. 
more than twenty years, was an enthusiastic naturalist and a 
gentleman who enjoyed the affectionate regard of the members he 
served so diligently. At that time he appeared to be chiefly 
interested in zoology and the microscope. Later, he became an 
earnest teacher of botany and was appointed the first Lecturer on 
that subject in University College. To him we are indebted for 
the planning and planting of our University Botanic Garden — of 
considerably larger area then than now. Thus it came about in 
the beginning that papers read at monthly meetings of the Society 
had little or no reference to botany. Early records of the pro- 
ceedings show that the members inclined to instruct themselves 
on geological and physical matters ; the anatomy and life-history 
of reptiles, molluscs and insects ; and economic questions relating 
to such vegetable products as tobacco, textile fibres, rag substi- 
tutes and the like. In the seventies Mr. Leipner lectured on 
" Mosses and their Allies " ; and we find him conducting excur- 
sions of a Botanical Section on Saturday afternoons. Reports on 
these rambles merely mention the observation of quite common 
trees and flowers. Mr. C. E. Broome wrote a paper on ' 'Bristol 
Fungi," and a list of Desmids observed in the neighbourhood 
was published by Mr. W. W. Stoddart. 
About this time Mr. Cedric Bucknall began an exhaustive 
study of our local Fungi, to be referred to on a later page. When 
the supply of fungus-species failed him, this botanist turned his 
attention to flowering Dlants ; and although that branch of botany 
was comparatively new to him his industry and capacity in 
attacking difficult problems have since secured him a high standing 
among systematists. His critical revision of the genus Symphytum, 
lately published by the Linnean Society of London, will have 
confirmed and enhanced the author's reputation. In local field- 
work Mr. Bucknall's observations have helped most usefully in 
clearing up some misconceptions in the naming of our plants, 
and have, moreover, enlarged our lists with additional species and 
varieties, often of considerable rarity. His discovery in the 
Bristol district of Stachys alpina, a plant previously unknown in 
Great Britain, aroused keen interest among the botanists of the 
country and induced many to come and view the locality in which 
it grows. 
The present writer joined the B.N.S. soon after his arrival in 
Bristol in 1874. Although a stranger and a tyro he was induced to 
undertake for the Society the preparation of a Flora of the Bristol 
Coal-fields — an area that had been chosen as essentially a natural 
one, well suited for local research, but ten or twelve times larger 
than that treated of by Swete. This essay originally came out 
in six yearly parts (1881-1887) published in successive volumes of 
the Society's Proceedings. Its content was about 1,000 species as 
against 800 that had been observed in Swete's smaller area ; and 
its array of recorded stations for the less common plants was, of 
course, much fuller, so that it was generally and justly regarded 
as a satisfactory prelude to the more elaborate work which even 
