WORK ON CRYPTOGAMS 121 



conditions of a lecture, and I make no pretence to completeness, 

 but will endeavour rather to indicate what appear to be the more 

 important of his many other contributions to science. 



His catalogues of the plants collected by those associated 

 with various expeditions, his Kew lists (which were published 

 under Alton's name) are well known to students of systematic 

 Botany, but his fine monograph on Raffiesia, containing, as it does, 

 many observations of general interest will well repay perusal even 

 after these many years. His studies on Cephalotus, on Caulo- 

 phyllum (with its remarkable seed formation), as well as his 

 considerable memoir on the Proteaceae, shew him as a naturalist 

 imbued with keen insight and possessed of extraordinarily sound 

 judgment. 



But Brown did not confine his attention to phanerogams, 

 but, as might have been anticipated from the studies of his 

 earlier years, pursued his investigations into the little explored 

 field of the cryptogams. 



We have seen that as a young man he had been greatly 

 attracted to the study of mosses. Later on he contributed two 

 important papers on these plants to the Linnean Society, one 

 in 1809, in which he described two new genera, one of them 

 Dawsonia, the other Leptostomum, both from Australasia. The 

 introductory remarks in which he discusses the character of the 

 moss capsule, are interesting as shewing how hopelessly impos- 

 sible it was at that time to arrive at a scientific understanding of 

 its structure, so long as everything was tested by the touchstone 

 of the flowering plants. Ten years afterwards he reverted to the 

 same subject, describing the new genus Lyellia from Nepaul, and 

 comparing it, as was his wont, with allied genera, e.g. Polytrichum, 

 Buxbaumia and many others, with the view of elucidating the 

 significance of its structure. The spores, however, are still 

 spoken of as seeds. The male plant is generally regarded as the 

 barren plant. It is not easy to reconcile the existence of male 

 flowers w^ith the view of Beauvois which Brown seemed still to 

 consider as not disproved, viz. that the seeds and pollen were 

 both contained in the capsule. 



Mosses were not the only cryptogams to which he turned his 

 attention. He described a new species of Azolla {A. pinnata) 



