L1N>£AN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 43 



Last, but certainly uot least, though Mr. Jacksou has been 

 good enough to prepare a Eeport on the Progress o£ Botany 

 during the year, I may, in connexion with ICew, allude here to 

 the ' Genera Plantarum.' This vast undertaking has occupied 

 the late President of the Linnean Society, Mr. Eentham, and Sir 

 Joseph Hooker for the last quarter of a century. Tlie first part 

 was published July 1862. The printing of the second part 

 of the third volume, concluding the work, has now began ; and 

 its publication may be hoped for before the next Linnean Anni- 

 versary. 



The portion published includes the genera of Dicotyledonous 

 plants. It deals with about 14,500 published genera, of which 

 probably about half have been sustained. Probably when the 

 whole is finished the accepted genera of flowering plants will 

 amount to something like 10,000. 



A most useful complement to the * Genera Pl.antarum ' will be 

 the new edition of Steudel's ' Nomenclator,' the funds for the 

 preparation of which have been supplied by the munificence of 

 Mr. Darwin. The superintendence of the work has been entrusted 

 to the Botanical Secretary, Mr. Daydon Jackson. 



Considering that the Linnean Society is now all but 100 years 

 old, it is somewhat remarkable that we have had during that long 

 period only nine Presidents : — 



Sir James Edward Smith was President from 1788 to 1828. 



Edward Lord Stanley, M.P. „ „ 1828 to 1834. 



Edward Adolphus Duke of Somerset „ „ 1834 to 1838. 



Edward Lord Bishop of Norwich „ „ 1838 to 1849. 



Eobert Brown „ „ 1849 to 1853. 



Thomas Bell „ „ 1853 to 1861. 



George Bentham „ „ 1861 to 1874. 



George James Allman „ „ 1874 to 1881. 



Indeed, I am happy to say that Members of our Society are 

 generally very long-lived ; but within a year, though not all 

 since the last Anniversary, we have had the misfortune to lose 

 three of our Officers — Mr. Alston, Mr. Currey, and Mr. Kippist. 

 They are referred to more at length in the Obituary Notices ; 

 but I cannot refrain from saying here how" much they are per- 

 sonally regretted, and how much we miss them at our Meetings. 

 The Secretary has been good enough to prejjare obituary 

 notices of the Eellows whom we have been so unfortunate as to 

 lose by death during the past twelve months. I regret to say 

 that the list is unusually long. 



The Society has already shown its sense of our irreparable loss 

 in the death of Mr. Darwin, both by adjourning on the day it 

 was announced, and also by passing a special vote of condolence 

 with Mr. Darwin and the other members of his family. I had 

 thought of attempting to give some short account of his work ; 

 but 1 understand that a series of articles will be devoted to it in 

 '^Nature ' by one eminently ([ualified for what is certainly no 



