SYSTEMATIC AND GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 19 



Geographical Botany can hardly be said to have had 

 any scientific status anterior to the publication of the 

 1 Origin of Species/ The way had been paved, how- 

 ever, by A. de Candolle and the well-known essay of 

 Edward Forbes i On the Distribution of the Plants 

 and Animals of the British Isles/ by Sir J. Hooker's 

 introductory essay to the i Flora of New Zealand/ and 

 by Hooker and Thomson's introductory essay to the 

 1 Flora Indica.' One result of these researches has been 

 to give the coup-de-grdce to the theory of an Atlantis. 

 Lastly, in a lecture delivered to the Geographical 

 Society in 1878, Thiselton Dyer himself has summed 

 up the present state of the subject, and contributed an 

 important addition to our knowledge of plant-distribu- 

 tion by showing how its main features may be ex- 

 plained by migration in latitude from north to south 

 without recourse being had to a submerged southern 

 continent for explaining the features common to South 

 Africa, Australia, and America. 



The fact that systematic and geographical botany 

 have claimed a preponderating share of the attention of 

 British phytologists, is no doubt in great measure due 

 to the ever-expanding area of the British Empire, and 

 the rich botanical treasures which we are continually 

 receiving from India and our numerous colonies. The 

 series of Indian and Colonial Floras, published under 

 the direction of the authorities at Kew, and the l Genera 

 Plantarum ' of Bentham and Hooker, are certainly an 

 honour to our country. To similar causes we may 

 trace the rise and rapid progress of economic botany, 

 to which the late Sir W. Hooker so greatly contri- 

 buted. 



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