BOTANICAL NEWS. 95 



and early devoted himself, under the guidance of his father, to natural 

 history pursuits. In his nineteenth year he published his first and 

 only zoological paper, being an account of a new genus of Crustacea. 

 He afterwards devoted himself entirely to botany, and in 1820 pub- 

 lished as his first contribution the genus Ceratopteris, a curious and 

 anomalous aquatic Fern which has puzzled pteridologists, and for 

 which he established a tribe under Gleicheniaceoi, a position which has 

 much to be said for it, though it has not been adopted by any subse- 

 quent systematist. At this early period of his life he must have 

 devoted much time to the study of fossil plants, for in 1822 he pub- 

 lished his important memoir " Sur la Classification et la Distribution 

 des Vegetaux fossiles." In this memoir he reviews the various plant- 

 remains known to him, grouping them in four classes and nineteen 

 genera. This may be considered as the starting-point of the intelligent 

 study of fossil plants, and from this beginning he continued his labours 

 until, more than any other man, he expounded the fragmentary re- 

 mains of extinct floras, and traced their relations to living plants. 

 Numerous memoirs on separate subjects followed. In 1828 he again re- 

 viewed the whole subject in his "Prodrome d'une Histoire des Vegetaux 

 fossiles," and began in the same year his great work, the " Histoire 

 des Yegetaux fossiles," of which twelve numbers were speedily issued. 

 The progress of the work was arrested by M. Brongniart's ill health, 

 and it was not resumed for a period of nine years, and then only three 

 additional parts were issued, leaving the great work incomplete, to the 

 regret of every student. The whole of the Cryptogams, vascular as well 

 as cellular, except a portion of the Lycopodiacefe, were described 

 and figured in the " Histoire." The only records of his work on, and 

 general views in regard to, the fossil phaenogamous plants are to be 

 found in his " Prodrome," and in the valuable article he contributed 

 to the " Dictionnaire d' Histoire Naturelle " (1849) on fossil plants. His 

 more recent memoirs on this subject are an account of a Lycopodiaceous 

 cone' identical with, but more perfect than, Robert Brown's Tripdo- 

 sporite, and the description of a large series of gymnospermous fruits 

 found by M. Grand' Eury in the Coal Measures at Saint-Etienne. The 

 details of structure were so remarkably preserved in these silicified 

 fruits, that eleven genera, each having one or more species, were 

 figured and described. M. Brongniart's works on fossil botany, 

 though so numerous and important, formed only a portion of his con- 

 tributions to the science of botany. His investigations on Embryology 

 are of great importance. They were published in the " Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles" for 1827, and continued in 1844, while his re- 

 searches into the action of pollen in Angiosperms and Grymnosperms 

 greatly advanced the knowledge of this subject. His work on the 

 structure and functions of leaves, on the structure of stems, and indeed on 

 almost every department of the science, was more generally attributed 

 to him years ago. At the present time these observations form part of the 

 common property of science, and are repeated in our manuals and 

 text-books without any thought of him who first expounded them. In 

 systematic botany he proposed in his "Enumeration des genres de 

 plantes cultives au Museum " a modification of the Natural System for 

 which, on grounds of strict affinity, much can be said, by incorporating 

 the incomplete and diclinous-flowered Angiosperms, which formed the 



