LINNEAN SOCIEXr OF LONDON. 37 



sTiowing his special bent. His career was not cramped by official 

 duties ; for he had the good fortune to be able to devote his 

 energies to the work he loved best without having to first secure 

 the means of living ; in this respect his life offers the strongest 

 contrast to that of Duchartre, which is given on p. 31. During 

 a large portion of liis life he lived at Berlin, where he worked in 

 his own laboratory, and brought out the great achievement c£ 

 his, or rather the record of his work and that of his disciple?, 

 the ' Jahrbiicher der wissenschaftliche Botanik,' from 1858 to the 

 36th and last voli^me, which has appeared in 1894 : it is now 

 continued by Professors Pfetfer and Strasburger. The important 

 department of systematic botany was almost wholly neglected in 

 this series ; hence to many the general title may appear arrogant ; 

 but the influence of these volumes has been a great stimulus to 

 morphologic and physiologic botany. 



Eduard August von Kegel, who passed away on the 5/17th 

 April, 1892 {cf. aartenflora, 1892, p. 225 & p. 2G1), was born at 

 Grotha on the 13th of August 1815, the son of a Professor at the 

 Grymnasium and Chaplain to the Forces in that town. Quite 

 early in life he manifested a strong leaning to the practical side 

 of plant cultivation ; and when in 1833 he removed to Groettingen, 

 he busied himself in the Botanical Grarden there for 2| years 

 as a voluntary assistant. He resisted his mother's solicitations 

 to study botany as a science, but preferred to continue the 

 career to which he felt him?elf irresistibly drawn ; and, under the 

 guidance of Prof. Bartling, after the period already mentioned, 

 he spent another eighteen months in the same institution, wheie 

 the collections of Preiss were in course of reception. From 1837 

 to 1839 he was transferred to Bonn, under Prof. Treviranus : be 

 here showed great energy and industry, but also the power of 

 great endurance ; for on holidays it was frequently his custom 

 to pass his Sundays in botanizing, spending the most of the nights 

 in getting to and from his selected hunting-ground, yet not 

 allowing himself to be late for his work on the following morning. 

 He next w^ent to the Berlin Grarden, where he had the care of 

 tue hardy plants and the due gathering of seeds and the culture 

 of the heaths. Link and Kunth had not troubled themselves 

 fur many years about the plants which were committed to the 

 care of Eegel ; consequently he had much to make up : about 

 this period he brought out his first works on gardening. In 

 February 1812 he was called to take the chief post in the Ziirich 

 Garden, and speedily found himself in complete accord with his 

 friends Prof. Heer and C. von Naegeli. The beautifully placed 

 garden was then of little importance; revenue was supposed to 

 be raised by trading in the stock of the garden ; but in the 

 first year of his new position there the amount only reached the 

 trifling sum of £12. A new impetus was given, and in the 

 year 1855, when he relinquished the post, the turnover amounted 

 to ten times that sum. By exchange with other gardens, Eegel 



