James Groves (1858-1933). 
By the death of James Groves on the 20th March last we 
lose one of the most distinguished of our systematic botanists, 
and the Club its honorary member who was ever ready to 
determine its Charophytes and other aquatic plants. 
Groves was born in London in 1858, three years after his 
brother Henry. Both the boys left school at an early age 
owing to the untimely death of their father, and in 1872 James 
entered the office of the Army and Navy Stores. They had 
both been imbued with a love of natural history while at 
school in Godaiming, and from the commencement of their 
business careers devoted their leisure to the acquisition of a 
sound knowledge of British flowering plants. In 1874 they 
joined the South London Microscopical and Natural History 
Club, and made the acquaintance of Hewett Cottrell Watson, 
B. Daydon Jackson, and other botanists of repute. In the 
following years they botanised extensively in Hampshire with 
Frederick Townsend, and in 1881 described as a new species 
the remarkable grass Spartina Townsendii. Other additions 
which our Flora owes to them are the very distinct hybrid 
Batrachian Ranunculus Hiltonii (1901) and Luzula pallescens 
(1909). 
In 1904 the brothers edited a new edition (ninth) of 
Babington’s “ Manual.'" This was brought up to date and 
enlarged with fresh accounts of several critical genera, but 
limitations imposed by Mrs. Babington prevented other 
alterations which might have been desirable. The nomen- 
clature was thoroughly overhauled, however, in accordance 
with the accepted principles of that period, and the general 
soundness of the Groves' views on this subject may be seen 
from their paper on the use of Linnean specific names (Journ. 
Linn. Soc. (Bot.) XXXV, 1902). 
Meanwhile the brothers were working intensively on the 
Charophytes, the study of which group they had begun in 
1877. Their first important paper, “ A Review of the British 
Characese,” appeared in the “Journal of Botany” in 1880, 
and this was succeeded in subsequent years b}^ a series of 
critical articles, often well illustrated, in which a number of 
new forms were described. Two fascicles of the British species 
were issued in 1892 and 1900, Canon Bullock- Webster 
participating in the latter. 
