462 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



popularity of this handy volume, bringing the light of full 

 knowledge and sound methods to guide the beginner's way, il- 

 lustrates the advantage of having elementary works prepared 

 by a master of the subject, whenever the master will take the 

 necessary pains. To the same end, the author prepared 

 for this volume an excellent and terse introduction to struc- 

 tural and descriptive botany, which has been prefixed to 

 all the Colonial Floras. In the first edition to this British 

 Flora it was attempted to use or to give English names to the 

 genera and species throughout. This could be done only in 

 such a familiar and well-trodden field as Britain, where al- 

 most every plant was familiar ; but even here it failed, and in 

 later editions the popular names were relegated to a subordi- 

 nate position. 



It has been stated that Mr. Bentham was over sixty years 

 old when he undertook the " Flora Australiensis," and he 

 was seventy-seven when he brought this vast work to com- 

 pletion, assisted only in notes and preliminary studies by 

 Baron von Mueller of Melbourne. About the same time he 

 courageously undertook the still greater task of a new " Gen- 

 era Plantarum," to be worked out, not, like that of Endlicher, 

 mainly by the compilation of published characters into a com- 

 mon formula, but by an actual examination of the extant ma- 

 terials, primarily those of the Kew herbarium, — this work, 

 however, in conjunction with his intimate associate, Sir Joseph 

 Hooker. This work is the only " joint production " in which 

 Mr. Bentham ever engaged. The relations and position of 

 the two authors made the association every way satisfactory, 

 and the magnitude of the task made it necessary. The train- 

 ing and the experience of the two associates were very differ- 

 ent and in some ways complemental, one having the greatest 

 herbarium knowledge of any living botanist, the other, the 

 widest and keenest observer of vegetable life under " what- 

 ever climes the sun's bright circle warms," as well as of 

 antarctic regions which it warms very little. It would be 

 expected, on the principle " juniores ad labores," that the 

 laboring oar would be taken by the younger of the pair. It 

 was long and severe work for both ; but the veteran was hap- 



