+ 
BERTHOLD SEEMANN. xxxiii 
these explorations was the purchase by some English capitalists of the Javali gold mine, in the 
district of Chontales, Nicaragua, and the company secured Seemann's services as managing 
director. This was most beneficial to the mine, but the result has been disastrous to science. 
His long and frequent absences from England and attention to business matters greatly interfered 
with Seemann's botanical work. Still his friends, and he himself, hoped that all this was but 
temporary, and that leisure and opportunity would again be found for scientific work. 
Seemann started in the summer of 1871 for Nicaragua with some misgivings, having suffered 
severely from fever on his last previous visit. He, however, reached Javali at the end of July, 
after a rough journey through the swamps, in good health, but in the middle of September he was 
seized with fever. From this he never rallied; his death, which happened after three weeks' 
illness, on October 10th, was somewhat sudden, and under circumstances which pointed towards 
some cardiac complication. The next day his body was buried close by his house at the mine, in 
the little patch of industry and civilization his energy had called into existence in the primeval 
forest, and surrounded by the tropical vegetation he knew so well. 
Besides the books already mentioned, Seemann was the author of many others. In 1858 he 
wrote the letterpress to the ‘ Paradisus Vindobonensis) In 1852 he published an enumeration of 
the Acacias cultivated in Europe, with two plates. His ‘ Popular History of Palms’ (1856) is 
well known, and has been translated into German by Dr. Bolle. His ‘British Ferns at one View’ 
(1860) has been a useful work to amateurs. Among his smaller botanical books may be 
mentioned ‘ Hanoverian Customs and Manners in their Relation to the Vegetable Kingdom’ 
(1862) ; an English translation of Von Kittlitz’s ‘Twenty-Four Views of the Vegetation of the 
Coasts and Islands of the Pacific? (1861) ; the introduction to and numerous articles in Lindley 
and Moore's excellent ‘Treasury of Botany? (1865); and the ‘Popular Nomenclature of the 
American Flora’ (1851). Of detached papers in science, the Royal Society's Catalogue (to 1863) 
enumerates fifty-eight under Seemann's name; the first there given is one on descriptive botany 
in the Regensburg * Flora? for 1844. 
But beyond his scientific writings, Dr. Seemann was a very prolific author of articles on 
subjects of general literature and politics. These are said to amount altogether to several 
thousands, in English, German, and several other languages, which he wrote well. Hé was also 
the author of several short dramas, two or three of which have some popularity in Hanover, and 
of some pieces of music, of which art he possessed a good knowledge. Seemann was a Fellow of the 
Linnean, Geographical, and other societies in England and abroad ; he took particular interest in 
the Anthropological Society, of which he was a Vice-President. In botany the groups which more 
especially engaged his attention were the genera Camellia and Thea (Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xxii.) 
and other Ternstrümiacem, the OCrescentiacem (Trans. Linn. Soc. vol xxiii); the Hederacee 
(‘Journal of Botany,—reprinted as a separate work 1865); aud the Bignoniacee. Regel (‘Garten- 
flora,’ iv. p. 183 and t. 126) dedicated to him a beautiful Gesneraceous plant from the Andes, now 
Seemannia sylvatica, Hanst. 
Dr. Seemann married an English lady ; but had the misfortune to lose his wife a few years 
ago, during one of his absences in Central America. He leaves an only daughter. 
