THE DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY. 



1. GENERAL SKETCH. 



The Department of Botany, originally styled the Banksian 

 Department, was established for the reception of the herbarium 

 of Sir Joseph Banks, who had, shortly before his death in 1820, 

 bequeathed it to Robert Brown, at whose demise it was to become 

 the property of the British Museum : with Brown's consent, 

 the herbarium might be removed to the Museum during his 

 lifetime. In the first Report of the Banksian Department, dated 

 7th December, 1827, Brown says that he has superintended its 

 removal, and was then engaged arranging it. The following 

 memorandum as to the contents of the herbarium was submitted 

 to the Trustees in 1834 : 



"The Banksian general herbarium, contained in cabinets 

 consisting of sixty-seven cubes having eight drawers each, is 

 arranged according to the Linnaean system, and by means of 

 alphabetical and systematic indexes it may be consulted without 

 difficulty. The number of species in this arranged herbarium is 

 23,400, of which 20,856 are phanerogamous and 2,544 crypto- 

 gamous plants ; the specimens of many, however, being more -or 

 less incomplete. Connected with the general herbarium there is 

 a collection of fruits and seeds, systematically arranged and 

 contained in 64 drawers. There is also a collection of flowers and 

 fruits, chiefly of the more rare or of succulent plants, preserved 

 in spirits, and contained in 326 bottles. One of the presses 

 contains 67 large specimens, chiefly parts of fructification, fronds, 

 and sections of trunks of palms. A cabinet of four cubes con- 

 tains several partial [special] collections, which, being the authentic 

 materials of important botanical works, are kept separate, 

 particularly Clifford's herbarium, the principal authority for the 

 plants described in one of Linnaeus's earliest and most celebrated 

 works ; Clayton's herbarium, from which Gronovius's ' Flora 

 Virginica ' was entirely formed ; a considerable number of plants 

 collected in the Levant by Tournefort and described in the 

 ' Corollarium ' to his ' Institutiones Rei Herbariae '; and others 



