76 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS.—SECTION D. 
lectors (z.e., field collectors, as distinguished from owners of 
collections, or accumulators of specimens) paid more or less 
attention to the Australian flora—Archibald Menzies, George 
Caley, Robert Brown and his colleague Ferdinand Bauer Allan 
Cunningham, Charles Fraser, and Richard Cunningham. With 
the exception of Menzies, who was merely a visitor, every one 
of them resided in Australia for at least two years. Their 
united operations cover a period of nearly forty years. The 
efforts of these responsible collectors were largely supplemented 
by a number of enthusiastic unofficial collectors, whose collec- 
tions got into the right hands, and, with hardly an exception, 
are accounted for. . 
Sir Joseph Hooker has included in his classical essay, “On 
the Flora of Australia, its Origin, &c.,” prefixed to the “ Flora 
of Tasmania,” an interesting chapter on the progress of botani- 
cal discovery in Australia. In this will be found an account of 
the “ Botanists, Navigators, Travellers, Collectors, or Residents, 
who lave supplied the materials for describing its Flora, or have 
published more or less of their descriptions,” with remarks on 
the location of the collections. This eminently satisfactory 
narrative brings up the history to 1859. 
In the preface to the first volume of the “ Flora Australiensis,” 
published in 1863, Mr. Bentham was able to supplement Sir 
Joseph Hooker’s historical sketch in a very important matter, 
more particularly with reference to the history of the important 
collections in general, and especially those which Baron von 
Mueller, Government Botanist of Victoria, was instrumental in 
getting together. This very rich herbarium was remitted to Mr. 
Bentham in instalments, and returned after critical examina- 
tion. On this head Mr. Bentham says :—‘“ One beneficial result 
to science of the course he has thus pursued is that there will 
be for future reference duplicate authentic specimens here and 
in Australia of the great majority of Australian species.” 
Thanks primarily to Sir Joseph Banks, secondarily to Sir 
William Jackson Hooker even before his official connection 
with Kew Gardens, and at a later period to Baron von Mueller 
who organised the collecting in Australia, there has been a con- 
servation of collections and concentration in three main direc- 
tions. 
1. The original Banksian collections, subject to a life-interest 
on the part of Robert Brown, were left to the nation. 
These were supplemented in various ways, more particularly by 
the collections of Caley, Robert Brown, and Allan Cunningham ; 
and form a good deal more than the basis of the Australian 
collections now in the British Museum. 
2. The magnificent series of Australian collections, which in 
various ways came into the possession of Sir Wiliam Jackson 
Hooker. These, with his library, after his death, in 1867 became 
