property, 
Acts 
43 
" Kew House had been the residence of Lord Gapel of Tewkes- 
bury, a brother of the Earl of Essex. It was leased by Frederick, 
prince of Wales, and was the home of his widow, the Princess 
Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, till her death. In 1759 she commenced 
the scientific history of Kew by establishing a Botanic or, as it was 
then called, a Physic Garden. George III. acquired the 
'"'■J m !*<>;: pulled down Kew House also. He obtained „ W u 
"! I'aihament empowering him to close Love Lane. Inn this 
apparently not finally accomplished till 1802. 
" The area of the Gardens as they at present exist is s miethiug 
under half a square mile. While the western half shows for the 
most part little evidence of the soil having been ever disturbed by 
cultivation, beyond being thickly planted with trees, this is not 
the ease with the eastern half, much of which has at one time or 
another apparently been brought under the plough. 
- In LSI:', a member of the Kew staff (Curator from 1886" to 
L901 1. Mr. George Nicholson, F.L.S., compiled a list of the native 
(and a few naturalised) plants occurring 1 spontaneously at Kew. 
This was published in the Journal ,,/ Botany for 1875.* Mr. R. I. 
Lynch, Curator of the Botanic Garden, Cambridge, also formerly a 
member of the Kew stall', materially contributed to its complete- 
ness from his own observations, and the late Lord de Tablev, 
better known to botanists as the Hon. John Leicester Warren, 
was keenly interested in it. 
" In the Kew Bulletin for 1897 (pp. 115-167) a first attempt was 
made to catalogue the Mycologie Flora by Mr. (I. Massee, F.L.S., 
a Principal Assistant in the Herbarium. The following passage is 
quoted from the prefatory note : — 
"'Of the Royal Gardens themselves some KM.) acres is little 
disturbed by any kind of cultivation, and ir ha.- certainly remained 
so for at least a century and a half. Some portions may nexev 
possibly have been subjected to cultivation at all. It is not sur- 
prising therefore that in the background of horticultural treatment 
there still subsists a wild fauna and flora of no inconsiderable 
dimensions. This, as opportunity offers, it is proposed to work 
out and catalogue from time to time.' 
" The Moss Flora was contributed to the Bulletin for 1S99 
(pp. 7-17) by Mr. E. S. Salmon, F.L.S. 
"Meanwhile Mr. Nicholson had steadily devoted his leisure 
hours to the comprehensive scheme contemplated in L897. He 
enlisted the assistance of a number of scientific friends, specialists 
the work and without whose efficient help it would, even in a 
tentative form, have been impossible of achievement. 
" I looked forward to thifl in Mr. Nicholson's hands with much 
interest and satisfaction. Unhappily, the breakdown of his health 
and his consequent retirement from the post of Curator in 1901 
compelled him to abandon a labour to which he no longer felt 
eonal Vs there was no immediate chance of anyone carrying; r 
^ " ».- -.-r. , . » T A~„;A„A in TMiKliali Hie materia 
