30 PEOCEBDINGS OF THE 



those of his works which I have myself foi;nd to be most valuable. 

 They are, in the first place, the series of papers described as ' Notes ' 

 on various orders, which he published in our " Journal " during the 

 later years of his life, more particularly those on the^Euphorbiaceae, 

 Orchidaceai, Composita?, and Graminea), as also that on the ' Dis- 

 tributiou of the Monocotyledonous Orders into Primary Groups.' 

 They reveal the master in their comprehensiveness combined with 

 concise lucidity, and charm the reader by that purity of style 

 which marked all that he wrote. In the second place came his 

 " Anniversary Addresses," delivered from this Chair, which are at 

 once the admiration and the despair of nil who have had the 

 honour to succeed him in it, and constitute an important body of 

 material for the biological history of the time. Whilst I must not 

 permit myself to dilate further upon this attractive and inex- 

 haustible theme, I cannot leave it without expressing regret that 

 no steps should have been taken to gather together Bentham's 

 smaller and widely scattered pieces — short papers, essays, reviews, 

 addresses — for the purpose of collective republication. It is a serious 

 misfortune that so much of the work of such a man should remain 

 practically inaccessible. 



Of the botanists whose chief contributions fall within this period, 

 and who, with Bentham, did so much to enhance the reputation of 

 this Society, some have gone from us, but some yet remain to inspire 

 us by their presence. We have lost Berkeley, the Father of British 

 Mycology, who freely gave us of his best, and could still give so 

 much in other directions : Miers, who has enriched our publications 

 with a series of papers elucidating the botany of South America, 

 which was his life-study: Munro, whose classical 'Monograph of 

 the Bambuseae ' adorns the twenty-sixth volume of the Trans- 

 actions (1870) : Spruce, chiefly distinguished as a Bryologist, but 

 who nevertheless wrote the ' Palma3 Amazonicse ' (1871). But we 

 still have Sir Joseph Hooker, the collaborator with Bentham, the 

 confidant of Darwin, the doyen of British botanists ; and Prof. 

 Oliver, so long his colleague, — veterans of science who have not yet 

 laid down their arms. It is not for me to appraise their work, 

 happily not yet completed ; but I cannot forbear a few brief 

 remarks. I would point out that, after Bentham and Smith, Sir 

 Joseph Hooker's name is the one which most frequently appears in 

 the botanical pages which this Society has issued. His papers are, 

 in the main, contributions of the first importance to the study of 

 Geographical Botany, more especially with reference to insular floras, 

 a department which he has made peculiarly his own ; but some of 

 them are on quite other topics, such as that on the pitchers of 

 Nepe7itJies, and notably that on WehuitscJiia, the strangest of all 

 Phanerogams, which is one of the most elaborate monographs that 

 this Society has ever published. To Prof. Oliver belongs the credit 

 of having revived in our midst the much-neglected study of the 

 anatomy of plants, as is evidenced by several papers in the 

 "Transactions"; but his work has been for the most part descriptive 

 and systematic, dealing with collections made by explorers in all 

 parts of the world; of his capacity in this direction, the Botany 



