TJie President's Address. By Wm. Carruthers. 117 



author of the Gardeners' Dictionary, was not friendly with him. 

 He attacked his paper on the animal nature of Corallines by submit- 

 ting a reply to the Royal Society, and Ellis answered it at the next 

 meeting. Ellis had a final word about Miller when he told Linnaeus 

 of his leaving the Chelsea Gardens. He wrote, " Poor Miller, 

 through his obstinacy and impertinence to the Society of Apo- 

 thecaries, is turned out of the Botanical Garden of Chelsea. I am 

 sorry for it, as he is now seventy-nine years of age ; they will allow 

 him his stipend, but have chosen another gardener. His vanity was 

 so raised by his voluminous publications that he considered no man 

 to know anything but himself ; though Gordon, Aiton, and Lee have 

 been long infinitely superior to him in the nicer and more delicate 

 parts of Gardening." Gordon was held by Ellis in high esteem, and 

 he showed his appreciation by dedicating to him the genus Gordonia. 

 Ellis was always desirous of connecting a new genus with the name 

 of a friend who had done creditable work in his favourite science. And 

 in choosing new plants he was singularly happy in finding unde- 

 ecribed types, so that his genera are acknowledged to the present 

 day. Halesia, after Dr. Hales ; Gardenia, after Dr. Garden ; and 

 Gordonia, after Gordon, whose nursery was at Mile End, were new 

 forms, and they were so clearly described that they have been easily 

 recognised. 



But to return to those who were not his friends ; it was to be 

 expected that he could not be cordial with Dr. John Hill, whose folio 

 volumes are as worthless as they are huge. His botany was of the 

 same quality as his physic, of which Garrick, in reference to a farce 

 written by Hill, said, — 



" For physic and farces Ids equal there scarce is ; 

 His farces are physic, his physic a farce is." 



Prof. Buttner, of Gottingen, was guilty of the most barefaced plagia- 

 rism, supported by falsehoods. Having heard Ellis's account of the 

 nature of Corallines at the Royal Society, he palmed it off' as his 

 own, and then asserted that Ellis got his knowledge from him. It 

 is no wonder that Ellis thanks Linnaeus " for supporting my character 

 against that insolent plagiary Buttner." 



- I should not overlook his introduction of the Venus's Fly Trap to 

 science and to cultivation. His figure and description " of that most 

 rare and singular plant, than which certainly nothing more interest- 

 ing was ever seen " (Linnatus), are admirable. He gave it the name 

 of Dionasa muscipula, which it still retains. 



Linnseus held Ellis in high esteem. He says of him, " You are 

 still the main support of Natural History in England, for your atten- 

 tion is ever given to all that serves to increase or promote this study 

 Without your aid the rest of the world would know little of the 

 acquisitions made by your intelligent countrymen in all parts of the 

 world. For my own part, I acknowledge myself to have derived 



