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JAMES BACKHOUSE. 51
Nyl., " with spores 0-023-36 mm. long, 0-009-13 mm. thick."— On
bark of Hollies in New Forest, perhaps not unfrequent.
JAMES BACKHOUSE.
'We have, this month, to mourn the loss of one of our veteran
]?ritish botanists, a keen field-observer at home during nearly sixty
years, aud one of the pioneers in the exploration of our southern
colouies,—Mr. James Backhouse, of York, who died at his residence,
Holgate House, in the suburbs of that city, on the 20th of January, at
the age of seventy-four.
He belonged to a family well known in Durham and the neighbour-
ing counties, during several generations, as members of the Society of
Friends, and for the prominent part they have taken in promoting
the commercial prosperity of that now thriving district, three of the
centres of Avhich are amongst the newly enfranchised parliamentary
boroughs,—the one to which Mr. Backhouse belonged, Darlington,
having returned a member of his family as its first representative.
Under the encouragement of his relative, Edward Roljson, known as a
correspondent of Sir J. E. Smith, he and his brothers learned, when
very young, to take an interest in the plants of their neighbourhood,
aud formed a herbarium. He was apprenticed to a chemist and
druggist in Darlington, but a severe cold, caught whilst distilling
Mint, developed into pulmonary consumption, and for some time his
life was despaired of, but by complete cessation from work, change of
air, and a lengthened stay with a relative in a healthy country district,
this was fortunately arrested. Left too delicate to follow any sedentary
occupation, his love of botany led him to gardening, and he went to
learn his business at Norwich, and stayed there a year or two. Here
he made the acquaintance of Sir William Hooker, and sometimes
shared his botanical rambles, as on au occasion of which we have
heard him tell when they went to seek Hippopliae, near Cromer, and
forgot to take any sandwiches, and had great difficulty in getting any-
thing to eat and drink.
Between 1820 and 1830 he married, and began business at York
as a nurseryman, in partnership with one of his brothers, and he considered
the old cathedral city as his home for the rest of his life. He
gradually began to take an active part as a volunteer minister in the