ON SPH.12RIA UOBERTSII. 77 



Dining the nearly half-century which had elapsed since 

 the publication of his great work, M. de Jussieu's preeminence 

 was undisputed. He beheld all the botanists who lived 

 around him, labouring to bring his method to perfection ; 

 Desfontaines confirmed it by his beautiful exemplifications of 

 the structure of stems; du Petit Thouars applied it witJi 

 singular sagacity; Richard, the father of close and minute 

 analysis, whose rigid language is well known, called the 

 author of the Natural Method, "the first Botanist in Europe/' 

 all the celebrated botanists who have arisen within this half- 

 century, acknowledged him as their master; to few men was 

 it granted to exercise such influence on the minds of others, 

 and to still fewer to be the witness of it ; in short, his career 

 was almost unique, stretching for about an equal number of 

 years in the 18th and 19th century, and allied both in its con- 

 temporaneous date and its glory, to the two greatest events 

 in natural science that have occurred in these two centuries, 

 the Chemistry of M. Lavoisier, published in 1789, the same 

 year as M. de Jussieu's great work which closes the 1 8th 

 century, and the Hecherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, the 

 production of M. G. Cuvier, with which opens the I9th. 



V On Sph.eria Robertsii. Hook. 



I With a Plate.] 

 (Tab. I. A.) 

 Our figure o( Spkceria Robertsii, Hook. Ic. PL tab. xi., being 

 unaccompanied by any analysis of the fructification, we gladly 

 give one which has been kindly sent to us by the Rev. Mr 

 Berkeley, and we refer to the Icones Plantarvm for the specific 

 character and description. 



Tab. I. A. Sph(Eria Eobertsii, as it grows from the bark of 

 the neck of a Larva in New Zealand : — not. size. — Fig. 1, 2. 

 Asci with sporidia; j. 3. Peritheciuni : — magnijied. 



