90 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 



No portion of the Linnean Society's collections is so frequently 

 consulted as the Linnean Herbarium, Suggestions have been 

 frequently made that a full catalogue of this Herbarium should be 

 printed and issued by the Society, but the difficulties in the way 

 of complying with such suggestions have hitherto proved in- 

 superable. In the original cabinets are contained nearly 14,000 

 sheets, which would need a thick octavo volume merely to record 

 the names of the species and accompanying notes. So brief a 

 catalogue would be of very little service to the botanists who refer 

 to the Herbarium, while a complete critical enumeration of every 

 specimen is at present quite unattainable. A host of specialists 

 would be required, and as the specimens naturally are not allowed 

 to be taken from the Society's rooms, nor tampered with in any 

 way, it would mean that these experts would have to perform 

 their task under disadvantageous conditions ; they would have to 

 rely upon their recollection and not upon their power to match 

 species by placing specimens side by side. 



There have been numerous references to special genera and 

 species scattered throughout the literature of descriptive botany, 

 from the days of Sir J. E. Smith to the present time, but we may 

 say that only five considerable portions of the Herbarium have 

 hitherto been adequately examined and the reports published. 

 These are : — 



1. Haetman (C). — " Anteckningar vid de Skandinaviska 



viixterna i Linnes Herbarium." Handl. K. Sv. Vet.- 

 Akad. Stockholm, 1849 (1850) pp. 145-191 ; ibid. 1851 

 (1853) pp. 211-426. 



2. MuNEO (W.). — " On the Identification of the Grasses of 



LinnsDus's Herbarium . . ." Journ. Linn. Soc, Bot. vi. 

 (1861) pp. 33-58. 



3. Anderson (T.). — " On the Identification of the Acanthaceae 



of the Linnean Herbarium . . ." Journ. Linn. Soc, Bot. 

 vii. (1863) pp. 111-118. 



4. ScHiMPEE (W. P.). — " Synonymia Muscorum herbarii 



Linnseani . . ." Journ. Linn. Soc, Bot. xi. (1869) 

 pp. 246-252. 



5. Claeke (C. B.). — " On certain authentic Cyperaceae of 



Linnaeus." Journ. Linn. Soc, Bot. xxx. (1894) pp. 299- 

 315. 



By the foregoing statement it will be understood how small a 



