president's address. 
657 
Professor G. S. Boulger says (in litt.) : — I know no mention 
of Pitchford earlier than Rose’s ‘ Elements of Botany ’ re 
Holosteum ; but does it not appear probable from his sending 
his kind regards to Dr. Hope through J. E. Smith, and from 
his succeeding to Rose’s house, that he may have studied at 
Edinburgh and have been an assistant to Rose ? ” But a similar 
message was sent through James Smith by the Rev. H. Bryant 
to Dr. Hope, who had been appointed Professor of botany at 
Edinburgh in 1761 ; and if Pitchford had been a student 
at Edinburgh I do not think that in April, 1782, he would 
have written to James Smith as follows : — “ Nor can I see 
that the competent knowledge of botany, which you say is 
considered at Edinburgh as an essential part of medical 
education, can really be so very necessary.” 6 
Pitchford was already a good botanist in 1769. His 
favourite genera were sedges and mints. In 1790, he 
writes : — “ I am somewhat mint-mad,” and some of his letters 
refer to little else/ 1 Smith says : — “ Mr. Sole and Mr. 
Pitchford were pre-eminent in the knowledge of the various 
mints ; we merely differed as to some of them being species 
or varieties, and my peculiar advantages only enabled me to 
correct their nomenclature.” 12 
The following unpublished letter is the property of the 
Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society; it was found in 
T. J. Woodward’s interleaved copy of Hudson’s “ Flora 
Anglica,” ed. ii ., in the library of this Society. The letter 
was folded in eight, and across the backs of two of the 
sections Woodward has written a description in English of 
Ophrys muscifera. When he received this letter, Mr. 
Woodward was going to London, accompanied by Mr. Stone, 
to have his first sight of the Linnaean treasures, and Pitchford 
sends him a list of specimens to which he should give special 
attention. Apparently James Crowe had Morison’s “ Plantarum 
Historiae . . . Oxoniensis ” (1680), mentioned in the letter, 
and Mr. Pitchford used to go to Lakenham to consult the 
book 27 : — 
