XX PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



Sucli iiro a few of tlu? directions in which we may trnce 

 the workings of the wonderful power known as vegetable life. 

 I have done little more than indicate certain paths of research 

 amongst many that abound in variety and beauty. I have been 

 obliged to leave out so much that I fear I may not have made 

 all I liave said clear to those who have hitherto paid but little 

 attention to Botany. My object has lieen specially to attract 

 such, and to show them that in Botany there is to be found 

 something more than hard words and dry catalogues of plants. 

 The range of the subject is magnificent. On land — fi'om the 

 Chlorococcum, the green stain I mentioned, to the towering 

 Wellingtonia or Eucalyptus ; in the water — from the minute 

 desmids and diatoms, a world of beauty in themselves, to 

 enormous seaweeds extending tlieir branches to many Inmdreds 

 of feet ; above — -from the red snow on the highest mountains, 

 to the black fungus at the bottom of coal mines beneatli ; in 

 time (leaving fossil plants out of consideration) — from a life of 

 a few hours to an existence of a thousand years. Beautiful — 

 hideous ; delicious — disgusting ; useful beyond all knowledge — 

 a pest and a terror; wholesome as food in every degree — or 

 poisonous in the same ; health-giving — or health-destroying ; 

 almost every epithet we can think of may be exhausted upon 

 those wonderful productions of nature ; and yet there are many 

 people, even educated people, to whom one plant is pretty much 

 as another plant, one flower as another flower ; and, indeed, of 

 whom the well-worn verse still runs true : — 



" A primrose by the river's brim 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was iiothiDg more." 



To remove such a stain upon our intelligence and culti- 

 vation has always been one of the objects of our Society, and in 

 vacating this honourable office, I rejoice that I shall still be the 

 companion of so many who have laboured both for the discovery 

 of new wonders arid for the enlightenment of their brethren. 



