BENJAMIN CLARKE, F.L.S. 85 



(lateral or dorsal) of the ovule. Mr. Clarke was skilful in dissec- 

 tion, well-grounded in morphology, and an able draughtsman ; and 

 many of the plates which illustrate his papers are excellent. Mr. 

 Bentham, in his anniversary address to the Linnean Society in 

 1862, referred to Mr. Clarke as " one of our most careful ob- 

 servers." He was led on to pay special attention to the two char- 

 acters (orientation of the carpels and of the raphe), and thence by 

 an easy transition, to attribute a supreme classificatory importance 

 to them. As early as 1851 he pat forward his ' Outlines of a new 

 arrangement of the Orders of Exogens,' which was ultimately 

 expanded into ' The Natural System of Botany.' This, under the 

 title, 'A New Arrangement of Phanerogamous Plants,' was first 

 published in 1866, and a third edition was issued in 1888. Pro- 

 bably no botanist of the present day supposes that any one true 

 Natural System of Botany exists ; any useful system must be 

 founded on a due recognition of all characters, and not on a few only 

 whereof two are given huge prepotence. 



Other systematists have not been able to employ for their 

 larger divisions the two particular characters which Mr. Clarke 

 fastened upon. Except when the carpels are two, it is often 

 difficult to prove inferentially (Mr. Clarke attempted it), whether 

 they are "anterior-posterior" or "lateral" with respect to the 

 axis. In a very large number of exogens the carpels are two, 

 but their orientation appears variable in one order and even in 

 one genus ; see the diagrams illustrating Oleacea, in Eichler's 

 1 Bluthendiagramme,' v. i. p. 235. Mr. Clarke showed much ingenuity 

 in reducing these variations by imagining a twisting of the pedicel, 

 &c. Hardly less difficulties attend the employ of the position of the 

 raphe. Mr. Clarke narrowed the application of this character to 

 the case of the anatropous ovule, but even then there are numerous 

 cases in which the raphe is neither definitely dorsal nor clearly 

 lateral, but betwixt and between. The matter appears to stand 

 that these two characters are like many other characters employed 

 by systematists ; they are very constant, and of much value in 

 determining affinity, and carry the classificator a long way ; then 

 a series of cases is met with in which they appear to become in- 

 constant in closely allied plants. 



But if Mr. Clarke has not persuaded the scientific world to 

 accept The Natural System of Botany, he has published, in his 

 attempts to establish the system, the record of an immense number 

 of valuable observations. There remain unpublished at Kew 

 scattered analyses by him ; one of these was made use of by Sir 

 J. D. Hooker, in his paper on " Hydrothrix," in the ' Annals of 

 Botany ' (i. p. 89, t. 7). It is to be regretted that Mr. Clarke 

 should have devoted his rare combination of botanic and artistic 

 ability to the propping up of a pet theory, instead of to some steady 

 morphological work, wherein he could hardly have failed to attain 

 great distinction. 



The period of Mr. Clarke's greatest botanical activity was from 

 1849 to 1865. During the last twenty-five years of his life, his 

 main botanical work was the perfecting of ' The Natural System of 



