William Henry Harvey (b. Limerick 1814, d. 1866), F.R.S., was a
botanist of very great distinction. During a lengthy residence in
South Africa, he made a careful study of the flora of the Cape of
Good Hope and published _The Genera of South African Plants_. After
this he was made keeper of the Herbarium, Trinity College, Dublin,
but, obtaining leave of absence, travelled in North and South
America, exploring the coast from Halifax to the Keys of Florida, in
order to collect materials for his great work, _Nereis
Boreali-Americana_, published by the Smithsonian Institution.
Subsequently he visited Ceylon, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and
the Friendly and Fiji Islands, collecting algae. The results were
published in his _Phycologia Australis_. At the time of his death he
was engaged on his _Flora Capensis_, and was generally considered the
first authority on algae in the world.
William Archer (b. Co. Down 1837, d. 1897), F.R.S., devoted his life
to the microscopic examination of freshwater organisms, especially
desmids and diatoms. He attained a very prominent place in this
branch of work among men of science. Perhaps his most remarkable
discovery was that of Chlamydomyxa labyrinthuloides (in 1868), "one
of the most remarkable and enigmatical of all known microscopic
organisms."
George James Allman (b. Cork 1812, d. 1898), F.R.S., professor of
botany in Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwarls Regius Professor of
natural history in the University of Edinburgh, published many papers
on botanical and zoological subjects, but his great work was that on
the gymnoblastic Hydrozoa, "without doubt the most important
systematic work dealing with the group of Coelenterata that has ever
been produced."
Amongst eminent living members of the class under consideration may
be mentioned Alexander Macalister (b. Dublin 1844), F.R.S., professor
of anatomy, first in Dublin and now in Cambridge, an eminent
morphologist and anthropologist, and Henry Horatio Dixon (b. Dublin),
F.R.S., professor of botany in Trinity College, an authority on
vegetable physiology, especially problems dealing with the sap.