The Presidential Address. 
3 
Norfolk, about 125 years back; and, though another branch 
was previously settled at Great Chesterford, the great grand¬ 
father of the late author of the ‘ Flora of Essex,’ George 
Gibson, for fifty-two years a minister of the Society of 
Friends, was the first of the family to live in Saffron Walden, 
coming there from Maldon. 
Born to ample private means, though occupied during 
much of his life by the cares of a large business, and of 
many municipal, charitable, and religious institutions, Mr. 
Gibson seems to have imbibed at an early age a love of 
Nature, which, as in the case of many of his most eminent 
co-religionists, was mainly directed to Botany. He seems, 
when little more than twenty, to have become so well 
acquainted with our British flora that his keen powers of 
observation added several species not only to the known flora 
of Essex, but also to that of the British Isles. His additions 
to our Essex list were fifteen in number—viz., Fumaria 
parviflora (1841), Alsine tenuifolici and Cuscuta trifolii (1842), 
Filago spathulata, Crepis setosa, and Cuscuta epilinum (1843), 
Galium vaillantii (1844), Fumaria vaillantii (1845), Carexfulva 
(1846), Poterium muricatum, Melampyrum arvense, and Thesium 
humifusum (1849), Vicia gracilis and Geum intermedium (1859), 
and Galium parisiense (1860). Of these, Cuscuta trifolii, Crepis 
setosa, Filago spathulata, and Galium vaillantii were new to 
Britain, as were also Arenaria uliginosa, found in Yorkshire in 
1844, and Potentilla norvegica from Cambridgeshire in 1868. 
Of these latter most were recorded in the pages of the first 
series of the ‘ Pliytologist,’ his contributions to which were 
as follows:—To vol. i. (1841-44), p. 408, “A Flora of the 
Neighbourhood of Saffron Walden,” 1842, containing Cuscuta 
epithymum? which afterwards proved to be C. trifolii; p. 466, 
“Additional Observations to a ‘Note on a supposed New 
British Cuscuta, by C. 0. Babington,’ (C. trifolii), ” January, 
1843 ; p. 735, “ Barer Plants observed near Weymouth,” 
August, 1843 ; p. 757, “Barer Plants observed near Weston- 
super-Mare,” August, 1843; p. 758, “Barer Plants found 
near Ventnor,” August, 1843; p. 770, “Note on the New 
Cuscuta August, 1843 ; p. 817, “ Notice of a Visit to Black 
