218 : BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Linneus; especially as his peculiar style and clashing expressions on 
different occasions and in different editions, rendered it often a 
matter of doubt and conjecture what specific plant he actually had 
before him or meant to name. The embarrassment arising from this 
source would be considerable even if the science of botany had re- 
mained stationary ; but it is much more felt in our times, when the 
progress which is constantly made renders it peculiarly important to 
know with certainty the plants described by the older botanists, and 
especialy Linneus; for instance, when a species requires to be broken 
up and it is necessary that we should know the typical form fixed 
by that great authority; not to speak of the polemical disputes 
which have arisen on such occasions, attended with loss of time and 
iemper, and retarding the progress of knowledge, multiplying our 
difficulties, and dealing with the science, not as an aim, but as a 
means only. 
All these disadvantages have more or less been felt from our want 
of a close or intimate acquaintance with the Linnean collections ; and 
not only in foreign countries, but in this, his own native land, whose 
flora, in consequence, still numbers many unsettled species. If Sweden 
had not, unfortunately for herself, lost those treasures, their close 
study would have supplied most of what was wanting in this re- 
spect; and it was to remedy this state of things, that I applied for 
and obtained last year the means of going to England, on purpose 
to examine the herbarium in question; and I now proceed to lay 
before the publie the results of my journey. Long ago my late la- 
mented father had expressed an anxious wish that such an investigation 
should take place; to him would I therefore aseribe the enterprise— 
while all that is defective in its execution must fall on my own 
shoulders. I am conscious that a botanist of his skill and experience 
would have performed the duty far better than I was able; and all 
T did has resulted in the following statement of the actual extent and 
form of the collection, and, as far as possible, accurate account of that 
part of it relating to the northern flora. 
The Linnean collections and library of books and manuscripts, which 
were purchased in Sweden and brought to England by the late Sir J. E. 
Smith, have since his death come into the possession of the Linnean 
.. Society of London, where they are preserved in their house in Soho 
Square; the botanical and zoological portions being placed respectively 
