JOHN LINDLEY 



1799 1865 



By FREDERICK KEEBLE 



Rise of Systematic Botany Lindley's place early history services to 

 Horticulture Professor at University College, London The Gardeners^ 

 Chronicle Theory and Practice of Horticulture The Vegetable King- 

 dom Orchids his interest in Fossil Botany personal characteristics. 



Introduction. 



The first half of the 19th century is a brilliant epoch in 

 the history of botanical discovery. During that period the 

 foundations of plant-anatomy were laid afresh with the cell as 

 the builders' material. The discovery of sarcode or protoplasm 

 electrified the scientific world and excited the attention of the 

 philosophical novelist as readers of Middlemarch may remem- 

 ber. The nucleus, the only and true deus ex niachina of many 

 a modern botanist, was recognised as an organ of the cell. 



Biochemistry came into being and, with Liebig as foster- 

 parent, grew into modern Physiology. The natural system of 

 classification proclaimed by Jussieu put to rout the old estab- 

 lished Linnean system and the enunciation of the theory of 

 Natural Selection brought the epoch to a dramatic close. 



In the constructive work of this period British botanists 

 played a distinguished part, and it was due preeminently to 

 them that the transition from the old artificial system to the 

 new natural system took place so speedily and completely. 



The group of men to whose labours this great change was 

 due include Hooker, Brown, Bentham and the subject of this 

 sketch, John Lindley. Nor from this brief list may the name 



