NOTABLE AWARD

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 105, 28 January 1938, Page 4

NOTABLE AWARD

. Honour For Auckland Botanist The honour of a fellowship of the Linnaean Society, London, has been conferred on Miss Lucy M. Cranwell, botanist at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Miss Cranwell was elected at the November meeting of the society, among those nominating her being Sir Arthur Hill, F.R.S., Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Mr. J. Rainsbottom, 0.8. E., president of the Linnaean Society. The society is the chief botanical and zoological association in the Anglo-Saxon world. The fellowship was conferred on Miss Cranwell in recognition of botanical research work done both in New Zealand and Sweden and because of efforts she has made to stimulate interest in botany through her position at the Auckland Museum. The Linnaean Society, which limits its membership to 800; is a longestablished organisation taking its name from Carle von Linne (Linnaeus), a famous Swedish botanist of the ISth century. After a visit to England in 1736, Linnaeus published his Genera Plantarum, a volume considered to be the starting-point of modern systematic botany. He was the first to enunciate the principles for defining genera and species, and to adhere to a uniform use of specific names. On Linnaeus’s deatli his widow offered his collections to Sir Joseph Banks, who advised Sir James Ed'ward Smith to buy them. Sir Janies secured the collections and removed them from Sweden in the face of threats of violence. In 1788 he formed the Linnaean Society and became its first president.