39 



DR. FRANKLAND, 



Accept this Medal as the appropriate reward of researches, which 

 have excited the greatest interest among all those who cultivate or 

 appreciate the science which you have so materially advanced and 

 adorned. 



The other Royal Medal has been awarded to Dr. Lindley, in 

 recognition of the value of his labours in various branches of Scien- 

 tific Botany ; and more especially for his learned and comprehensive 

 works on the Natural Orders of Plants, on Orchidese, and on theo- 

 retical and practical Horticulture. 



The eminent position which Dr. Lindley has attained amongst 

 naturalists, is founded upon a knowledge of the Vegetable King- 

 dom, in the most extended sense of that term, such as few have 

 acquired ; the result of many years of diligent research and con- 

 tinued study of the structure, morphology, and development of 

 plants from every part of the globe. To the knowledge thus ob- 

 tained, he has applied the resources of an original and vigorous 

 intellect, and a quick appreciation of affinities ; and he has embodied 

 the results of his labours in a series of works upon the affinities of 

 plants, which are alike remarkable for the clearness of their arrange- 

 ment, the lucidity of their style, and the influence they have had 

 upon the progress of philosophical Botany. In these labours we 

 recognize with satisfaction the evidence of his regarding systematic 

 Botany in its true light, as the sister science of the Comparative 

 Anatomy of animals ; and, like it, depending for the value of its 

 results upon the number and variety, as well as the complete- 

 ness and accuracy of the naturalist's observations, and upon his 

 powers of combination. 



In the systematic investigation of the Orchideous plants, Dr. 

 Lindley has devoted himself during a long series of years to one of 

 the most difficult branches of Descriptive Botany. The species of 

 this remarkable and extensive natural order are of a singularly com- 

 plicated structure the clue to their affinities lies in minute organs ; 

 and as by far the greater number of species are only to be obtained 

 for study in a dried and mutilated state, their investigation demands 

 an amount of patience and skill in microscopic analysis, such as very 

 few botanists have devoted to similar inquiries. 



