of the Genus Aloe. 3 



mean the utter impracticability of their ever appearing in a 

 hortus siccus ; at least in any cognizable shape. 



Impressed Avith these sensations, and a natural early-planted 

 love of the succulent department of botany, and of gardening in 

 all its branches, I have long collected and cultivated, and with 

 unremitting assiduity still continue to collect and cultivate, all 

 the Aloes and other succulent plants which it is possible to pro- 

 cure. Fifteen years ago with ardour I commenced the pleasing 

 task ; and the observations I have now the satisfaction of sub- 

 mitting to the Linnean Society, I give as the result of all the 

 experience I have acquired on this subject from that period to the 

 present time. 



In the beginning and middle of the late century, when the ma- 

 nagement of green-house and hot-house plants was in its infancy ; 

 when collections of exotics were neither so numerous nor so exten- 

 sive as at present; not only succulent plants in general, but those 

 of the genus Aloe in particular, were held in the highest repute, 

 both in Britain and on the continent, but more especially in 

 Holland. 



This arose partly from the smallncss of the collections of those 

 times, and partly from the well-known facility Avith which plants 

 of this description are usually managed and kept. Besides, the 

 strange and impressive forms assumed by them (so widely different 

 from the other branches of the vegetable kingdom) at those periods, 

 from the circumstance of novelty alone, attracted the attention 

 of botanists and gardeners more than they can now be expected 

 to do. That indeed was the golden age of the succulent plants. 

 In this country, Bradley, by his well known Decades ; and Dille- 

 nius, who with matchless skill exhausted the subject as far as then 

 known ; and Miller, by his celebrated Dkiionanj, incorporating 

 with unusual facility all their knowledge with his own, and with 



b 2 that 



