100 JOHN JOSEPH BENNETT. 



the various facts on his own generalisations or those of others, I may 

 instance his investigations under Ataxia Ilorsjieldii, Kunth, into the 

 structure of those Grasses in which deviations occur from the ordinary 

 number of stamens, and the bearing of these observations upon Mr. 

 Brown's liypothesis as to the nature of the floral envelopes in Grasses ; 

 or his exposition of the structure of the fruit of Podocarpua, 

 under P. cupressina, R. Br., and its correlation with Abietineous fruits, 

 and his confirmation of the views he advanced by an examination of the 

 male flowers of the Coniferte, and particularly of the structure of the 

 pollen grains, when he pointed out the systematic value of the re- 

 markable difierences that occur in the pollen of the Abietineous and 

 Taxiueous sections of the Order. And in the direction of those 

 physiological observations which have in later times been so mucli 

 dwelt upon in England, I would call attention to his account of the sin- 

 gular modes adopted in the Hcdymrccc for the protection of the pod 

 and its contents during their ])rogress to matuiity as recorded under 

 Mecopus nidulans, Benn., and Phylacmm Bracteosum, Benn. 



Besides the " I'lantic Javanicaj " only a few short papers have been 

 published by Mr. Bennett, the majority of them being descriptions of 

 plants collected by his friend, Dr. W. F. Daniell. A list of these 

 miscellaneous papers is appended to this notice. 



Mr. Bennett was elected a Fellow of the lloyal Society on Decem- 

 ber 16, 1841. In the previous year he had undertaken the office of 

 Secretary to the Linnean Society, which he held for twenty years. 

 During this long term he managed efficiently the business of the 

 Society, editing all its periodicals and attending all its meetings. 



The rooms in old Montague House in which the Banksian Herba- 

 rium was placed were too small for the collections ; accordingly Mr. 

 Brown secured better accommodation in the new building erecting for 

 the British Museum, and to those rooms the collections were removed 

 in the summer of 1843. The Herbarium was placed in two spacious 

 rooms ; the inner containing the Banksian Herbarium, with the 

 additions made to it since it became the public propertj', while the 

 various unmounted collections, nearly all of which were systematically 

 arranged, were placed in geographical order in the outer room. The 

 intimate acquaintance which both Mr. Brown and Mr. Bennett had of 

 these collections, made them almost as available to students as the 

 mounted Herbarium, while the want of assistance throughout so many 

 of the early years of the Department, and its very scanty supply after 

 it was granted, had greatly interfered with the incorporation of these 

 unmountM collections. With ample accommodation and increasing 

 manual assistance, the following years saw large additions made to the 

 Herbarium, and its usefulness to botanists developing. In such (piiut 

 and continuous labours the years went past until April, 18J8, when 

 Mr. Brown had a serious attack of bronchitis, which in a lew weeks 

 issued in his death. This was a great calamity to Mr. Bennett, whose 

 profound admiration for his illustrious colleague di'veloped in his warm 

 heart into strong aftection. He waited on Mr. Brown througli his 

 illness with unceasing and all but filial devotion, and cheereil and 

 comforted him in the last days and nights of his life. Mr. Brown 

 bec^ueathed to him his Library and Herbarium ; the latter was accom- 

 modated in a room in the British Museum, where it has remained to 



