MR. B. C. ASTON, C.B.E.

Forest and Bird, Issue 91, 1 February 1949, Page 8

MR. B. C. ASTON, C.B.E.

IN the New Year Honours List appeared the award of the rank of C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) to our immediate past-President, Mr. Bernard Cracroft Aston. Mr. Aston joined the Society .in 1930 and has been a member of the Executive since 1932. He succeeded the late Captain Sanderson as President, a post which he relinquished last year. In his capacity as Chief Chemist of the Agricultural Department he undertook exhaustive researches into the utilisation of land and the cure and treatment of diseases in stock, with outstanding success.

He carried out much botanical exploration, including between 1907 and 1909 two visits to the islands of the far south. He climbed the 9000 ft, Mt. Tupuaenuku in the Kaikouras, and

also was one of the first to cross, the Mt. Hector range.

Mr. Aston is a botanist of repute, and has discovered over 20 new species of flowering and other plants, many of which bear his name, notable among them being Muehlem beckia Astoni, Coprosma Astoni, Poa Aston! (of the Snares Islands) and many others. He is a past-President of the Royal Society of New Zealand, to whose Transactions as well as the Journal of Agriculture he contributed many papers on chemical and botanical subjects. The Dominion Museum is indebted to him for the gift of a plant collection which he made.

The honour bestowed on Mr. Aston is welldeserved and the Society tenders him its heartiest congratulations.