225 
Mr. J. HuTCHINSON, whose appointment as Assistant for 
India was recorded in Kew. Bull., 1908, p. 421, has been transferred 
to the post of Assistant for Tropical Africa on the staff of the 
Royal Botanic Gardens. 
Mr, W. G. Cratp, M.A., formerly officiating Curator of the 
Herbarium attached to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, has 
been appointed Assistant for India on the staff of the Royal 
Botanic Gardens by the Secretary of State for India in Council. 
H 
botany by Professor F. Freire Allemaio. Botanical excursions in 
the neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro and in his native state fitted 
him for the long series of expeditions which he undertook between 
1869 and 1897, mainly in the Amazon basin, but later on also in 
the Southern States and in Uruguay and Paraguay. In 1883 he 
founded a botanical and ethnographical museum at Mandos, on the 
Amazon, which he superintended himself until 1889, when he was 
appointed Director of the Botanic Garden near Rio de Janeiro, a 
post which he held until his death. On his travels he does not 
seem to have availed himself much of the splendid opportunities for 
collecting. He rather studied plants from life, and, being a fair 
draughtsman, filled his portfolios with sketches and analyses, mainly 
of palms and orchids, his favourite families. His first descriptions 
and illustrations of members of these two families date back as far 
as 1875 and 1877 respectively. They were the first contributions 
to the great task he had set himself from the beginning of his 
botanical career, and to which he adhered with rare perseverance — 
namely, the elaboration of monographs of the Orchidaceae and 
Palmae of Brazil. He was not allowed to carry the monograph of 
the Orchidaceae to a conclusion. It was planned on a sumptuous 
scale, which, in the end, he found beyond his means. It was intended 
as an Iconographia, with coloured illustrations in natural size and 
analyses, of all the species found in Brazil. Up to 1891 he pub- 
lished preliminary diagnoses of not less than 573 new species, 
25 new genera, and | new tribe, whilst his collection of drawings 
then run up to about 900 plates. In the almost complete 
absence of specimens, and considering the shortness of the diagnoses, 
there was great danger that most of his new species and genera 
would remain obscure; but, seeing that he himself should not be 
able to reap the full fruits of his almost lifelong work, he generously 
handed the bulk of his drawings over to his more fortunate rival, 
