LIin)fEAN SOCIETY OP LONDOIS". 59 



subject is treated at far greater length in his paper on Asclepiadecp. 

 and OrcliidefB, communicated to this Society many years later, it 

 will be more convenient to postpone the consideration of it. 



In the same year Brown read before this Society his observa- 

 tions oQ tlie organs of fructification of Mosses ; and ia 1819 his 

 account of Li/ellia and other remarkable genera of the Order. 

 In the first of these lie discusses the hypotheses of the sexes of 

 mosses, and the oeconomy of the capsule. The discussion is 

 curious, as showing how crude were the ideas entertained at that 

 period of the nature of this organ aud its contents, as expressed 

 by the terms applied to them. 



In the second paper the development of the columella is 

 demonstrated, and natural characters are for the first time 

 indicated for the formation of genera and higher groups, to 

 which are subordinated those of tlie peristome; the pores at the 

 base of the capsule in LyelJia are detected ; and the curious (I 

 need not add, untenable) speculations hazarded, that these may 

 assist in the dispersion of the seeds, and that they indicate the 

 possible existence of allied plants in which the capsule is closed, 

 aud the pores sufficiently large to admit of the complete dis- 

 charges of the seeds thereby *. 



In 1812 Brown read before this Society his description of 

 Woodsia, which with that on Matonia, published in Wallich's 

 ' Plantse Asiaticse Rariores ' in 1830, and on Dipteris in Bennett's 

 ' Plantoe Javanicse Rariores ' (1838), comprise the principal results 

 of his study of the Ferns. Under the first-named genus he 

 explains the nature and development of the involucrum, and 

 gives a history of the classification of the genera of the Order, 

 noticing the successive improvements introduced since the time 

 of Eay by Sir J. Smith, Swartz, Bernardi, and Willdeuow, 

 Under the other genera, in the Appendix to Flinders's Voyage, he 

 gives his own more scientific conceptions of their classification 

 by venation, and by the relation of the sori to the veins, whilst 

 regarding the sori themselves and the capsule and spores as 

 available for sections or subgenera. Tlie structure of the 

 caudex in the ferns is for the first time described, aud the curious 

 cellular matrix iu which the " capsules " of Dipteris Wallioliii are 

 imbedded, is detected and explained. 



In 1814) the narrative of Flinders's Voyage was published, with 

 the Botanical Appendix by Brown. This is one of his most 

 important contributions to Botany, for the number, variety, aud 

 suggestiveness of the new facts, observations, aud generalizations 

 it contains, and of which the following are amongst the salient. 

 The numerical proportions of the Classes of plants as aftected by 



* It was on the rarest occasions that Brown hazarded a speculation ; his 

 caution was proverbial, and he habitually listened to the speculations of others 

 in silence, or treated them with caustic humour. It is a singular fact that 

 whereas Brown's many theoretical views were so often as true as profound, his 

 very few specidative ones should be the reverse. 



