SEPARATE WORK IN THE ‘ GENERA PLANTARUM.’ 307 
the two important orders Rubiacew and Composite. Hooker 
devoted a great deal of time to the former (and their close allies 
the Caprifoliacez) requiring much scientific study, whilst I endea- 
voured to reduce to some order the intricate, almost endless details 
of the innumerable closely allied and often scarcely distinct 
genera of Composite. The second part of the volume comprised 
the great mass of Gamopetalous orders, which I began with the 
Campanulacez and their immediate allies, followed by Hooker 
with the Vacciniaceæ, Ericaces, Epacridex, and their allies, the 
Myrsinez, Primulaces, and a portion of the Sapotaces, when the 
pressure of official and other avocations with occasional absences 
prevented him for a time from a continuous detailed elaboratiou 
of genera, and the remaining Gamopetalous orders all devolved 
upon me. 
In the third volume Hooker resumed active work. The first 
part, Monochlamydex, began with the series of curvembryous 
orders elaborated by him, from Nyctagine to Batidee. He also 
prepared the Nepenthaceæ, Cytinacee, and Balanophoree as a 
résumé of the important monographs he had previously published. 
I worked out the remaining orders, amongst which the Euphor- 
biaceze and Urticew took up the most time. Hooker was to 
have done the Gymnospermee, of which he had so much prac- 
tical knowledge in a living state; but unfortunately he was at 
that time again much engaged in other duties, and I was obliged 
to satisfy myself with consultations on points which appeared to 
me to be doubtful; and two or three errors have crept in which 
were overlooked in the correction of the proofs, but adverted to 
in the Addenda et Corrigenda. The second part of the third 
volume, the Monocotyledons, appeared at first so formidable an 
undertaking, that in the uncertainty of being enabled to carry it 
through to the end, we determined to commence with the most 
difficult orders. Hooker attacked the Palms, for which I felt 
totally incompetent; and notwithstanding the great facilities 
derived from his previous knowledge and close study of the 
copious materials supplied by the museums and living collections 
of Kew, he found that they required much more time than he 
had at first calculated upon, besides a great deal of foreign cor- 
respondence with Wendland, Beccari, and others who had more 
or less worked at the order. lin the mean time devoted more 
than a twelvemonth's constant and uninterrupted labour to the 
Orchidez, and at least as much to the Graminee. We then 
