A Century of Botany: 1835–1885–1935

Abstract

UP to 1885, the whole field of botany was supposed to be covered by the professor himself. The elementary teaching might embrace the spirit of all its branches: but the science as a whole was then like a bomb with its pin drawn out, ready to burst into divergent lines for which neither personnel nor accommodation were prepared.’ Stimulating the time surely was, but exacting to the point of impossibility. The best course for the new professor in Glasgow was then to select some branch as his own special study, and by preference one cognate with local history. Personal experience gained elsewhere pointed to the mosses and ferns, a line of specialisation which would renew continuity with the Hookerian tradition. Moreover, the overcast skies of Glasgow gave conditions suitable for their culture. So after an interval of half a century, the special line of research followed there by Sir William Hooker was resumed.