May 23, 1859.] OBITUARY.— BROWN. 239 



great botanist, were written seventeen years before be received tbe 

 highest honour of the Royal Society, and thirty-six years before his 

 decease. 



The truth of the above-mentioned remark of Humboldt, that the 

 loss of Eobert Brown has been more felt in Germany and other 

 countries than in England, has very recently been realised by the 

 publication of an eloquent eloge of the deceased by his great 

 German botanical contemporary, our associate Dr. Ch. von Martius, 

 of Munich, who opens his essay by declaring that, next to Linnaeus, 

 the three other names ever to be memorable in the history of botany 

 are those of Jussieu, De Candolle, and Brown. 



Eeferring my hearers to the full translation of this treatise * for the 

 clearest definitions of the researches and discoveries of the deceased, 

 in establishing the surest foundations of phytogeography, as de- 

 pendent on the morphology, development, geography, statistics, 

 and history of plants, let me cite one or two sentences from the 

 essay of the eminent Bavarian : — 



** Not one of those essential parts of the plant on whose manifold 

 forms and combinations depends the glorious wealth of the vege- 

 table kingdom was passed over by the searching eye of Eobert 

 Brown. From the microscopic germ of the moss and the vegetable 

 ovule to the flower ; from the stamen and its pollen to the carpel 

 and the fruit, he examined and compared all the organs in plants, of 

 the most diverse orders, and in all stages of development. 



" Governed by the deepest sense of natural truth and natural 

 relations, he established the soundest views upon the nature and 

 developmental history of these organs. Thus he vastly contributed 

 to the consolidation of that theory (morphology) which gives to 

 systematic botany its true claim to rank among the sciences. 



" In these morphological researches of Eobert Brown there was a 

 peculiar affinity to the spirit of the Germans, and thus this is a 

 deep-rooted cause of the powerful influence which he has exerted 

 upon botany in our country." 



After a lucid and critical review of his scientific labours. Dr. von 

 Martius passes to the consideration of what he justly terms the 

 fairest and most glorious aspect of the man — his moral nature. 

 And here, together with all my countrymen who knew Eobert 

 Brown, I can bear witness that our foreign contemporary has 

 struck the right note when he thus speaks : — 



* See * Annals, of Natui-al History,' vol. iii. p. 231. 



