462 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. LX. 



He did not construct, or even reconstruct, any system; 

 but his works served as the most spontaneous ilhistration 

 of what the principles of a natural system, then in its 

 infancy, should be. As Sachs points out (History, p. 143), 

 " he discovered that marks which are of great value for 

 classification within the limits of certain groups of affinity, 

 may possibly prove worthless in other divisions," a con- 

 clusion which one must examine in the light of the science 

 of his time in order to fully estimate its value as a 

 discovery. Some of his works were purely systematic, as, 

 for instance, the "Prodromus Flone Novae Hollandi*," which, 

 though the original edition in England was withdrawn from 

 circulation owing to Brown's sensitiveness to criticism on 

 its Latinity, was repeatedly republished in Germany. But 

 most of his descriptive works are interspersed with general 

 observations, led up to by the study of the plants in 

 <;iuestion. I have already alluded to his papers on Kingia 

 and on the Orchidacefe as examples of this. It is great 

 minds which thus are able to enlarge the area of what 

 might at first appear a small subject, and by the touch of 

 genius, the true philosopher's stone, convert what in other 

 hands might be mere base metal to pure gold. 



Probably the strongest and most general interest will at 

 the present day be felt in those papers which in his 

 miscellaneous works are collected under the heading of 

 " Structural and Physiological Memoirs." In a short 

 paper on the "Fructification of Mosses" Brown satisfactorily 

 disposed of the erroneous idea of Beauvois, that the spores 

 are of the nature of pollen and fertilise " seeds " embedded 

 in the cohmiella. A more careful mode of preparation, 

 together with comparison with Phascum, which has no 

 developed columella, were the foundation of Brown's 

 argument. 



The paper on " Seeds and Fruits " is chieHy remarkable 

 for its concluding paragraph, which foreshadows so much of 

 his important later work. He points out that the ano- 

 malous structures which he has been studying "especially 

 demonstrate the necessity of carefully ascertaining the 

 state of the unimpregnated ovarium ; for while its struc- 

 ture remains unknown, that of the ripe fruit can never be 

 thoroughly understood." This passage, published in 1818, 



