be another century of unbroken prosperity and even greater usefulness. The recently issued part contains a new Æschynanthus from his collections, and several plates in the parts now in the press were prepared from material furnished by him. lie had a particular wish that the number of his plants figured in the magazine should reach a hundred, and it was a great satisfaction to him to know that during this past year the century was attained. I11 July last he wrote: 4 1 believe I ana right in saying that no private garden has contributed so many species to the Botanical Magazine.' So long ago as 1877 Sir Joseph Hooker dedicated a volume to him, 4 an honour,' he declared, 'which at such an early period I did not deserved Sir Joseph’s fine tribute to the zeal, intelligence and success with which Mr. Elwes had pursued horticultural botany, and to the liberal spirit in which he had laboured to advance its best interests, might have been expressed not only with reference to what he had so far accomplished, but what one having a knowledge of his character and talents might have expected from him during his subsequent life."
We may then rightly say that he was a botanical gardener of high accom¬ plishments, though he himself made light of his powers.
In the last years of his life, in a letter to me about the preparations he was making for the publication of these Memoirs he wrote:
"Though I cannot pretend to the accurate and minute powers of observation and knowledge of hardy plants of ... I thought something might be done that would be useful and interesting to others."
And he had seen more, and knew and remembered more of what he had seen, than any of us !
It was greatly due to Mrs. Elwes’s interest in plants that he took to gardening. Before her marriage she visited the Alps, and an eminent botanist whom she met there helped her to name plants and so started her interest in them. I grow plants of Polygonatum verticillatum given to me by Elwes, who told me he collected them in Scotland during his honey¬ moon in 1871,
He made his first garden at Miserden House, near Cirencester, and on the death of his father in 1891 moved to Colesbome, high on the Cotswolds, on a cold oolitic formation. Plants were cultivated there to a surprising degree of excellence in spite of a cold soil and early frosts that generally ruined Heliotrope and the huge leaves of Paulownia tomentosa early in September, quite a month earlier than in other gardens in the county,
I never saw the garden at Miserden, but heard much about its treasures from my old friend Canon Ellacombe; but I was a frequent visitor at Colesborne.
Elwes was at his very best in his own garden. It was delightful to see how much he enjoyed a good plant and also seeing a guest equally pleased with it. He knew so much of the habits, history and requirements of his plants, all of which he would impart, more as though reminding a less experienced gardener of facts he knew than in the way of instruction, No gardening amateur of my acquaintance equalled Elwes in the vigour of his zeal to obtain good plants, to cultivate them well, and then to distribute them to all who appreciated them, I feel certain that no good collection of plants can be found in Britain which does not owe many of its best directly or indirectly to his generosity. He enjoyed giving away a plant as much as
