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Dr. Thwaites

1882; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 26; Issue: 678 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/026632a0

1476-4687

W. T. T. D.,

Plant Diversity and Evolution

GEORGE HENRY KENDRICK THWAITES, whose death was recorded in a recent number of NATURE, was a well-known member of the older generation of British botanists. I do not know the exact date or place of his birth, but suppose it to have been in 1811. In his early life he followed the profession of Notary Public at Bristol, and apparently had a hard struggle to support and educate numerous younger brothers and sisters. He had a natural passion for botanical studies which he cultivated to such good purpose as to obtain the appointment of Lecturer on Botany and Vegetable Physiology at the School of Medicine at Bristol. He was no less ardent as an entomologist, and throughout his life collected assiduously; some of his earliest papers are on entomological subjects. His principal published work has, however, always been botanical. Till he left England he was mostly occupied with microscopical investigations, and what he published of these were like all that he did later—excellent specimens of careful and intelligent observation. His paper “On the Cell-membrane of plants” (1846) which established many interesting and at that time novel points, received a good deal of attention. Amongst other things it apparently gave the first accurate interpretation of the mucous investment of the cells of many Palmelleœ, Nostochineœ, and Diatomacœ; Thwaites was able to show clearly that this was the product of the gelatinisation of the cell-walls. His capital discovery, however, was that of Conjugation in the Diatomaceœ. This he observed in Eunotia turgida, and the paper describing it bears the date May 11, 1847, and was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. It was, as Thwaites himself remarked, “a discovery which is valuable as proving that a relationship of affinity as well as of analogy exists between the Diatomaceœ and the Desmideœ and Conjugatœ, and will help to settle the question as to whether the former are to be referred to the animal or the vegetable kingdom. “I have been told nevertheless that when this important discovery was communicated to the British Association at Oxford, it was received with but little attention.