REPORT FOR I906. 
203 
of a field botanist’s pursuits seem to give a wider range of thought 
and culture ; and this catholicity of mind Clarke possessed in an 
eminent degree. ‘ Every one who knew him loved him.’ Only 
a short time before his death the writer saw him busy at his 
task of completing the ‘ Flora of Madeira,’ which had remained 
unfinished since the tragic death of Lowe. 
William Mitten (see ‘Journ. Bot.’ 1906, p. 329) was born 
at Hurstpierpoint in Sussex, in 18x9, and died there on July 27th, 
1906. He was by calling a Chemist, and from early years was 
interested in botany. In 1848 he wrote ‘ Descriptions of some 
Plants new to the British Flora ’ in Hooker’s ‘ London Journal of 
Botany,’ vii., 1848, p. 52, which included Potentilla mixta^ Nolte, 
Filago spathtilata^ Presl., under the name of F. Jussiaei, Coss. and 
Germ., Merairialis ovata, Sternb. and Hoppe, Carex Kochiatia^ 
D.C., Lolium linicola^ Sond. (see ‘ E. B. Suppl.’ t. 2955), and 
Triticu 77 i bifloriwi^ Brign ; the last known in our lists as AgropyroTi 
ca 7 imu 77 i, var. Do 7 iia 7 iu 7 n. Shortly after he recorded for the first 
time in Britain a plant gathered by Mr. Borrer in Cornwall under 
the name F. agraria, which is the F. coTtfusa, Jord. He also 
discovered the plant named by Mr. J. G. Baker Myosotis collina^ var. 
Mittenii. But Mitten soon deflected his attention from the Phanero- 
gams to that of Mosses and Hepatics. In this study he soon be- 
came facile princeps, his ‘ Musci Austro-Americana ’ occupying 
the whole of the twelth volume of the ‘ Journal of the Linnean 
Society.’ For many years he practically named all the Musci for 
the Kew Herbarium, continuing his work to 1891. At Hurst- 
pierpoint, where for many years he had the close friendship of 
Borrer, Mitten had an old - world garden, from the point of 
a gardener an awful place, but to the botanist full of interest. 
It was a great charm to chat with the keen intellectual devotee 
of science, and hear him describe Borrer, Sir William Hooker, 
Jenner, and other botanists of a preceding time. His name is per- 
petuated in Mit/e 7 iia, Lindberg. 
H. Marshall Ward, F.R.S., Professor of Botany in the 
University of Cambridge, born in 1854, died at Torquay on 
Aug. 26th, 1906, belongs to another school of botanical workers, 
but although essentially a histologist and a professional botanist. 
