GRAHAM, ROBERT, the third son of Dr. Robert Graham, after wards Moir of Leckie, was born at Stirling on the 3rd of December 1786. He followed his father's profession, and in the early part of his life practised medicine at Glasgow. Previous to the year 1818 there was no separate chair of botany in the University of Glasgow, and lectures on this subject were read by the professor of anatomy iu the summer season. On the government establishing a separate chair for botany, Dr. Graham was appointed to the post. In 1321 the chair of botany becoming vacant in the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Graham was the successful candidate for the office, He was also appointed physician to tho Infirmary, and conservator of the Botanic Garden of f:dir.burgh, to which he speedily devoted much attention, and to his exertions the garden is mainly indebted for its present flourishing condition.
Although Dr. Graham evidently possessed but little botanical know ledge on his being appointed to the Glasgow chair, he devoted himself with great enthusiasm to the study of it in Edinburgh, and he pro bably enlisted the feelings of his pupils more by his enthusiasm than his deep knowledge. One plan which he adopted was very successful in producing a love of the science he taught, and that was his prac tice of making excursions with his pupils to some distant part of the country. Ile thus examined, during successive summers, the floras of
several important districts of Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland. The knowledge which he thus obtained, induced him to prepare materials for a Flora of Great Britain, which however he did not live to publish. His published works consist chiefly of descriptions of new or rare plants which flowered in the botanic gardens of Edin borgh. Thaws, as well as notices of his excursions and other papers, appeared in the 'Edinburgh New Philosophical Magazine,' Curtis's ' Botanical Magazine,' and Hooker's ' Companion to the Botanical Magazine.' Dr. Graham was a strong and powerful man, but his health gave way some agars before hla death, and he eventually died on the 7th of August 1843, of an cncepbalold tumour which occupied the back part of the thorax and pressed upou the great vessels of the heart. He was a frank kind-hearted man, and few men have left behind them a larger circle of affectionate friends to lament his death.