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
coreligionists, 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 tenuifolia and Cuscuta trifolii (1842),
Filago spathulata, Crepis setosa, and Cuscuta epilinum (1843),
Galium vaillantii (1844), Fumaria vaillantii (1845), Carex fulva
(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 'Phytologist,' 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. C. Babington,' (C. trifolii)," January,
1843; p. 735, "Rarer 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