690 
THE TROPICAL AGRICUl TURIST. [Apkil 2, 1900. 
As powerful patrons of the cause of Botany — 
the grammar to successful Hoiticulture and 
Agriculture — the genera Anstyutheria, Carria, 
and Mackenzia (Strobilanthes) are worthy of re- 
ference, since they commemorate respectively 
Mr. Pliilip Anstruther, late Colonial Secretary of 
Ceylon ; iSir W. 0. Carr, f.l.s., late Chief Justice; 
and Rt. Hon. J. A. Stewart-Mackenzie, Governor 
of Ceylon from 1837-1841, who liimselfjmade an im- 
partant collection of Ceylon i)lants which he 
afterwards presented to the Kew Herbarium. 
Succeeding Dr. Gardner in 1850, Dr. G H K 
Thwaites, f.r.s., arrived in Ceylon early in that 
jear to take up the duties of the post which he 
worthily and uninterruptedly held for over 30yeais, 
never h aving once left the island after his first 
arrival, so great was his devotion to his work. 
Tliwaites had an early and special love for crypto- 
gamic botany, which in Ceylon lie soon extended 
to the phanerogamic flora. In 1858 was commenced 
the publication of his Enumeratio Plantarum 
Zeylanice, which was completed in an 8ro. volume 
in 1864. The cause of economic botany also 
found in him a strong promoter, and during his 
administration the branch garden at Hakgala was 
founded in 1860, and that at Heneratgoda in 1876, 
each with the object of introducing and experi- 
menting with products suitablefor the respectiredis- 
tricts represented ; whilst one must also attribute to 
him in agreat measure the establishment of cinchona 
cultivation in the island, the introduction of both 
tlie Para-rubber and Ceara-rubber tree, and of 
Liberian coffee. • The genus of Alga; Thwaitesia 
was dedicated to him, and this was supplementd 
in 1867 by the foundation by Sir Joseph Hooker 
of the beautiful epiphytic genus Kendricka, re- 
presenting the third of Thwaites' names. 
Dr. Thwaites was elected F. R. S. in 
1864, and made C. M, G. in 1878. He 
died suddenly in Kandy in 1882, two 
years after his retirement, and a, handsom* 
cenotaph memorial was erected to him in 1885, 
in a prominent part of Peradeniya Gardens, by 
public subscription, a similar recognition of services 
having already been accorded to the memory of 
ills predecessor Dr. Gardner, in the form of a 
cenotaph in the Gardens. There is a memoir of 
Dr. Thwaites, with portrait, in the Tropical 
Agriculturist Vol. XIV, and a short notice of 
the life and death ot Dr. Gardner in the "Journal' 
of Botany" for 1849. 
Succeeding Mr. Hartog, who held for three years 
(1874-77) the newly created office of Assistant 
Director at Peradeniya. Mr. (now Dr.) Daniel 
Morris, who is at present Imperial Coiumissioner of 
Agriculture for the West Indian Colonies, remained 
in the same capacity for two years. He was 
followed in 1880 by Mr. Marshall Ward, now an 
eminent Professor of botany in England, who 
was appointed for about a year only in the capa- 
city of Cryptogainist for the purpose of investi- 
gating the coft'ee-leaf disease, Hamileia vastatrix. 
X. Y. 
NO. V. 
Dear Sir,— In Ceylon, 
" Where spring perpetual leads the laughing hours," 
the pursuit of botany has oll'ered fascination 
to ecclesiastics as well as civilians. The 
genus Gleniea has been so-named by Sir Joseph 
Hooker in honour of that zealous botanist Kev. 
S. O. Glenie, f.l.s., who, being resident in the 
Colony from 1859 to 1871 as Colonial Chaplain 
and Archdeacon, made large collections of indi- 
genous plants, chiefly in the Eastern Province, 
sending them with notes to Dr. Thwaites for in- 
corporation in the " Enumeratio.'' 
Few amateur botanists have cultivated a taste 
for botanical pursuits with more signal success 
than the late Mr. W. Ferguson, f.l.s., ofiBcer of 
the Survey Department and brother of the 
eminent editor Mr. A. M. Ferguson, c.m.g. 
Besides numerous papers and correspondence on 
botanical as well as zoological subjects, he issued 
in 1850 a unique and instructive book on the 
Palmyrah Palm, an 8vo, pamphlet now very 
scarce. The Scripture Botany of Ceyloii formed 
the subject of an interesting pamphlet by him ia 
1859, followed by an account of the Timber Trees 
of Ceylon in 1863, Ceylon Ferns aud their Allies 
in 1881, and a brochure on The Grasses •f Ceylon 
in the same year. The study of low vegetable 
organisms had als« an attraction for him, and his 
collection of Alga; was incorporated in 1887 in the 
Catalogue of Ceylon Alga: by Mr, George Murray, 
F.L.S., of the British Museum. Sir Joseph 
Hooker, Sir Emerson Tennent, Drs. Thwaites 
and Trimen, all acknowledged their " copious 
and mutually instructive coratnanications " with 
Ferguson; and, as is a customary compliment to 
men of repute, Sir Joseph Hooker dedicated the 
genus Fergtisonia to him. 
Mr. W. Ferguson had a worthy contemporary in 
Mr. Greorge Wall, f.l.s., wno published in 1673, for 
private circulation only, his Catalogue of Ceylon 
Ferns, a,ito vol. which was followed by his Check List 
of CeylonFerns in 1879. Cryptogamic botany was 
his favourite pastime, and his private collection 
of Ceylon ferns was very large. The tower of the 
Victoria Commemoration Buildings in Kandy, 
now opened, has been erected to the memory 
of Mr. Wall, by the Planters' Association of 
Ceylon, 
'The present state of knowledge of Ceylon 
Botany owes undoubtedly more to Dr. Trimen, 
who succeeded Dr. Thwaites in 1880, than even to 
the labours of his illustrious predecessors. As- 
suming the duties of head of our Botanical De- 
partment at the age of 35, with an already es- 
tablished reputation in Europe as a botanist, he 
by his great acquirements and steady devotion 
to science rendered yeoman service to the bota- 
nical world generally for 16 years, his death, 
truly in harness, occurring in October 1896. 
From the outset the reorganisation of his de- 
partment upon more modern and utilitarian 
principles received his special attention, simul- 
taneously with the investigation of the local 
flora, collecting and describing new species and 
elucidating ones hitherto imperfectly understood. 
He was an authority on Quinology, and in 188<( 
was engaged by the Madras Government to report 
on certain problems connected with the Cinchona 
industry of the Nilgiris. In 1886 he issued hi.s 
Systematic Catalogue of Flowering Plants tend 
Ferns Indigenous to Ceylon, an 8vo. now out of 
print ; whilst in 1888 he published his Hortus 
Zeylanicus, being a classified list of plants grown 
in the Royal B»tauic Gardens at Peradsniya. As 
co-author of the voluminous and standard work 
Medical Plajits by Trimen and Bently, be was 
au fait in medical botany, which he turned to 
good purpose by establishing in Peradeniya 
Gardens a Botanical Museum, containing collec- 
tions of native and foreign drugs, fibres, timbers, 
grains, curiosities, &c. Branch-gardens were 
founded by him at Anuradhapura and Badulla in 
1883 and 1886 respectively. The pages of various 
scientific journals, more particularly the Journal 
