In Robert Brown we have the greatest botanist of his day, for thirty years keeper of the Botanical Department of the British Museum. It is doubtful if any greater intellect than Brown's has ever been devoted to the service of Botanical Science.
Sir William Hooker was the first Director of Kew, and under his genial administration the foundations of that great institution were most truly laid. Born under the star of Linnaeus, his own researches lay in the systematic field—more especially among the Ferns and Bryophytes.
J. S. Henslow was for many years Professor of Botany at Cambridge, but it is his life as Rector of Hitcham in Suffolk that finds special prominence in the interesting Memoir which formed the subject-matter of his son's lecture. The account given of his educational methods will be read with interest in these days when "Nature Study" has been sprung on the world as a new thing.
John Lindley was a man of the most amazing energy and his scientific output was prodigious. Though he attained high distinction in many fields of Botany, being an accomplished Systematist and Palaeobotanist, probably his greatest service was on the scientific side of Horticulture. Considering the scale of production, the work of Lindley maintains a remarkably high level. It is recorded of him that he never took a holiday till he reached the age of 52. His was the dominant personality in Botany of the early and mid-Victorian era.
William Griffith had the energy and power of endurance of Lindley, under whose influence he came. Trained to the practice of medicine he took service under the East India Company where he was able to devote the priceless intervals between his official duties to botanical travel, collecting, and the morphological investigation of Indian plants. The results of his brief but remarkable career are embodied mainly in his voluminous illustrated notes which were published posthumously in 1852. The name of Griffith has been happily linked with that of Treub, his brilliant successor in our own times.
Arthur Henfrey belonged to a very different type. Compelled by ill-health to the life of a recluse, his short life was
