THE BRYOLOGIST. 
Vol. X. Janaury, 1907 No. 1. 
WILLIAM MITTEN. 
A Sketch with Bibliography. 
William Edward Nicholson. 
The bryological world is the poorer to-day by the loss of the veteran bry- 
ologist, William Mitten. Born at Hurstpierpoint, in the County of Sussex, 
the 30th November, 1819, he was in his 87th year when he passed away on 
the 20th July last. 
By profession a pharmaceutical chemist, he was in early life apprenticed 
at Lewes in the same county to a chemist of the name of Saxby, who carried 
on business at a shop which has long since disappeared. He soon evinced 
a strong taste for various [branches of natural history, and a story is still 
current in the town that, somewhat to his master’s annoyance, those numer- 
ous pigeon holes, so general in a chemist’s [shop, with the mysterious labels 
Rh. Zingit, etc., etc , were frequently found to harbor “specimens” by no 
means corresponding to the label outside. 
A fortunate acquaintance in early life with William Borrer, a well- 
known Sussex botanist, and Sir William Hooker caused him to turn his 
attention to the study of mosses and hepatics, and as early as May, 1843, 
he recorded the discovery from near Erith of Aulacomnium androgynum 
Schwgr, in fruit, a very rare condition in Europe, while in 1846 he discovered 
near Hurstpierpoint the rare and interesting Weisia (Astomum) Mitte7iii 
which was named after him, and soon afterwards described by the authors 
of the Bryologia Europea, then in course of publication. Shortly after this 
Mitten turned his attention to the study of exotic mosses and hepatics, and 
in 1851 he published, in Hooker’s Journal of Botany, “ a Catalogue of crypto- 
gamic plants, collected by W. Jameson in the vicinity of Quito.” From this 
time, until a few years before his death, his work on exotic bryology was 
continuous, as will be seen from the subjoined list of his principal publica- 
tions, and during this period most of the collections of mosses and hepatics 
received at Kew passed through his hands for determination. I regret my 
inability to discuss Mitten’s work on exotic bryology, as I have not had the 
leisure or opportunity for studying mosses over a wide field. A general 
review of his work by a more competent pen would be most useful. 
Mitten was on the side of the “ splitters r rather than of the “ lumpers,” 
but in dealing with a group where there was so much new ground to be cov- 
ered, such an attitude is in many ways justifiable, and it may reasonably be 
left to a later generation to take a more synthetic view. In any event, 
Mitten was fully aware that much yet remained to be done in this direction. 
Shortly before his death he told me that he had been looking through his 
North American Brachythecia with, I believe, a view to their revision 
though I am not aware that this group particularly needs reduction or that 
Mitten’s project took any definite shape. 
The November Bryologist was issued November 1, 1906. 
