8 REV. BENEDICT SCORTECHINI, L.L.B., F.L.S. ; 
Malayan Peninsula worked hard with this end in view. On 
December roth, 1885, in an allusion to this undertaking he 
wrote— 
“‘T have been looking over my ferns and I find that I must have ‘close up’ 
200 collected here in Perak; some new, some unknown to be here, &c. 
I was thinking that it would be well to bring together all the ferns of the 
Malayan Peninsula hitherto known and publish a Manual. The species 
would number most likely over 300; and it would be easy to do the work if 
the Straits Settlements Government would publish it. Of my 200 species I 
have nearly all the diagnosis written with their keys; of the rest, which 
I have not seen, but which are recorded to be here, I have nothing to do 
but to copy the descriptions im fide eorum.”’—Letter to F. M. BAILey, 
10th December, 1885. 
But for his more general work he must needs visit that great 
emporium of botanical learning, the Kew establishment, to consult 
botanists and herbaria, but he must also associate with him some 
equally talented scientist, so vast was the undertaking that he had set 
himself to accomplish. Thus to use his own words, “he got Dr. 
King, of Calcutta, into partnership in his work.” ‘These decisions 
and arrangements he had made prior to his having left the Straits 
Settlements, and little is known here other than the fact that he 
visited Calcutta on the 14th October on his way to England, and 
presumably to consult with his chosen colleague.* 
Here, to use the words of his valued friend, Baron F. von 
Mueller, “he not even having reached the zenith of his life” was 
cut off, and we may express the hope with him also that “his 
collections and notes are all safe, so that he will get thus far full 
reward in science for his brilliant work.” Meanwhile those of us 
who have known him busy with his investigations in the study, or 
in the field, or who have talked with him over the camp fire after 
a hard but successful day’s work, in which also they have partici- 
pated, will feel how true was the sentiment given expression to 
by Publius of old, in these words—/omo totses moritur quoties 
amittit suos. 
* An earnest of what no doubt would have been one of the first fruits of 
this co-partnery is afforded by a paper ‘‘On the species of Loranthus 
indigenous to Perak,” by George King, M.B., L.L.D., F.L.8., &c., contained 
in the “‘ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,” vol. LVI, pt. II, No. 1 
(1887), pp. 89-100. This paper refers to the fact that ‘‘during the past 
few years considerable botanical collections have been accumulated by the 
Rev. Father Scortechini (now, alas! no more),” and gives some account of 
his discoveries amongst the plants of this genus, enumerating the following 
new species :—Loranthus crassipetalus, L. productus, L. grandifrons, L. 
Scortechini, L. Duthieanus, L. Dianthus (King and Scort. MSS_), L. platy- 
phyllus, L. Lowii, L. Kingii (Scortechini MSS.) 
