MR. T. SOUTHWELL ON OLD-TIME NORFOLK BOTANISTS. 385 
president of this Society — Herbert Decimus Geldart. 
Mr. Geldart was born at Norwich in the year 1831, the son 
of one who took an honourable position in a literary circle 
which flourished in this County and City early in the 19th 
century, which reputation he amply sustained. There was 
scarcely a branch of Natural History, including microscopy, 
on which he was not singularly well informed, but his special 
subject was botany on which he contributed many papers 
to the Transactions of our Society, especially the lists of 
Flowering Plants and Ferns in the published Fauna anil 
Flora of the County, and the admirable article on the same 
subject in the ‘ Victoria History of the Counties, Norfolk,’ 
vol. i. But his contributions were not confined to local 
botany ; in his Presidential Address to our Society in 1883, 
he expounded the theory of Symbiosis, or the physiological 
relationship of plants and animals, and in that of 1896, 
discoursed on the distribution of the Arctic Flora. In 1887 
he described the plants collected by Capt. (Admiral) Markham 
in Hudson Bay, and in 181)4, in conjunction with Col. Feilden, 
some valuable “ Notes on a small collection of Spitzbergen 
Plants ” ; in 1896 “ Contributions to the Flora of Russian 
Lapland,” and 11 Contributions to the Flora of Kolguev,” 
jointly with the same Arctic navigator. As to these valuable 
contributions to our knowledge of the Arctic Flora, Col. 
Feilden remarks in a letter to the Secretary of our Society — 
“ his extraordinary general knowledge was combined with such 
accuracy and exactitude that I never found him tripping in 
the thousands of references that have passed between us. 
What I should feel inclined to dilate upon is the great know- 
ledge, perseverance, and unflagging energy with which he 
worked out, in co-operation with me, the various collections 
that I brought back from time to time from the Arctic 
Regions.” Mr. Geldart died on September 21st. 1902. to the 
universal regret of those to whom his great experience and 
ready help had so often been extended. 
There are many other names I could mention, did space 
allow, of contributors to Norfolk botany who have passed 
