42 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



A. St. Hilaire, and our countryman Dr. Burchell, and were compa- 

 ratively little known to botanists in general. With this view he 

 embarked at Rio de Janeiro, and reached Pernambuco in July 1837 : 

 he spent three months in exploring that province, visiting the Rio 

 San Francisco, which he ascended as high as the falls of Pedro 

 AfFon^o ; hence he returned to Pernambuco, and proceeded by sea 

 to Aracaty, from which point he penetrated inland, making very 

 large collections in the provinces of Ceara and Piauhy. His inten- 

 tion was to cross to the westward and explore the banks of the To- 

 cantins, and ascending along the course of that river to penetrate by 

 this route as far as the city of Goyaz, and if possible to reach the 

 cities of Cuyaba and Matto Grosso ; but the political disturbances 

 then raging in Piauhy obliged him to alter his course in a more 

 southerly direction : this had the advantage of offering a long tract 

 yet untrodden by any botanist, and he accordingly traversed the 

 westernmost portion of the province of Pernambuco and crossed the 

 more eastern parts of that of Goyaz, examining in his way the high 

 table-lands in these districts, which afforded him a rich harvest. 

 Crossing then the Serra Geral, near Arrayas, he entered the pro- 

 vince of Minas Geraes, where he added greatly to his collections, 

 especially among the rarities of the Diamond district, and after tra- 

 versing this entire province he again reached Rio de Janeiro at the 

 end of 1840. Hence he paid a second visit to the Organ Mountains 

 and the rich mountain country in the neighbourhood of the Parahyba 

 River, and finally embarked with his collections for Liverpool, w^here 

 he arrived in July 1841, having been absent five years and two 

 months, during which period his collections amounted to upwards 

 of 6000 species of Phanerogamous plants, consisting of fine and well 

 selected specimens, in excellent preservation. 



His many interesting letters to Sir William Hooker, written at 

 various stages during his travels, were published from time to time 

 in the ' Companion to the Botanical Magazine,' the ' Annals of Na- 

 tural History,' and the 'Journal of Botany ;' but in 1846 he prepared 

 a more popular Account of his Journey, which was published in an 

 8vo volume under the title of ' Travels in the Interior of Brazil.' He 

 likewise contributed, after his return to England, several botanical 

 memoirs to the ' London Journal of Botany ' on Chresta, Pycnocephala, 

 Trochopteris, Bowmannia, Hockinia, and several other new genera ; and 

 in 1 842 he commenced an Enumeration and description of the plants 

 he had collected during his travels, which he continued to publish 

 from time to time in the same journal. In 1843, in conjunction 

 with Mr. Fielding, he published a ' Sertum Plantarum,' containing 



