Identifier: transactionsofna01natu (find matches)
Title: Transactions of the Natural History Society of Glasgow
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Natural History Society of Glasgow Natural History Society of Glasgow. Proceedings Natural History Society of Glasgow. Proceedings and transactions
Subjects: Natural history Natural history -- Scotland
Publisher: Glasgow, The Society
Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MBLWHOI Library

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e, made the study of plants a passion with himrather than a pastime, and the wonders of the vege-table world his chief delight and recreation. Hewas a botanist, and yet something more than abotanist—he was a devoted flower-lover. Mere col-lections of plants dead and dried did not satisfy him.In those old-world times before Waterloo had beenfought, he gathered round his home by the Clydeplants native and alien by the thousand. His gardenat Dalbeth became the nursing mother of what isnow the Glasgow Royal Botanic Garden, and it ismainly owing to that zeal of his some seventy yearsago that we have today anything more about Glas-gow illustrative of Natural History than useful dry-as-dust museums of dead creatures, preserved orpetrified. The object of this sketch is mainly to put on recordsomething bearing on his work, before all remem-brance of him passes away; but I shall also attemptto estimate the amount of difference that has arisenin the Flora of the district since his time, and to
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iiiu.M.Yh HOPKIRK, LL.D., l\i... ^FAWU .-l.V OIL IAlNTfNG.) THOMAS HOPKIRK OF DALBETH. 197 account for it. Though only a comparatively shortperiod separates us from his days of enthusiasticlabour among herbs and weeds, so great have beenthe changes in and around this ancient city thatthese times only seem near to us when we think ofthe turbulent centuries beyond. Since then Glasgowhas grown into a really great city; and whenwe reflect on the many indispensable elements inour present civilisation that were at that time un-known, we can readily conceive why this yesterdayranges itself so distinctly with the dead past. While many men of less desert have gathered aroundthem far-sounding posthumous reputations, ThomaaHopkirks work has been nearly forgotten. I trustto be able to show how much he did and howassiduously he wrought as the pioneer botanist ofClydesdale. He was born at Dalbeth, near Glasgow, in 1785.The family of which he was a member had longoccupied an honourable position in t

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