[xiii] 



Labillardiere published in his Relation du Voyage a la Recherche de 

 La Perouse (1799); for notes on his methods of forming generic names, 

 whereby, for example Chorizonema (referring to the separate filaments 

 of the stamens) was ellipsized into the 'fanciful Greek name' Chorizema, 

 and Campylonema into Campynema, see Hart (1954). Robert Brown 

 used ellipsis in the same way when publishing Calystegia instead of 

 Calycostegia in his Prodromus. 



Brown returned to England in October 1805. About this time Jonas 

 Dryander compiled a catalogue of all the plants of New Holland and 

 Van Diemen's Island hitherto published (cf. Dryander, 1806). It lists 

 only 370 species of vascular plants, with which may be contrasted the 

 4200 Australian species estimated by Robert Brown as available to him 

 in 1814, mostly through his own collecting, the 8500 or so (exclusive 

 of vascular cryptogams) described by Bentham in 1863 — 78, the 8800 

 listed by Ferdinand von Mueller in 1889 and the 12 000 estimated 

 by J. W. Audas as known to occur in Australia in 1950. 



FLINDERS'S VOYAGE AND BROWN'S COLLECTING PLACES 



IN AUSTRALIA. 



Robert Brown was born on 21 December 1773 at Montrose, Scotland. 

 He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh without taking a 

 degree, then in 1795 was commissioned as an Ensign and Assistant 

 Surgeon in the Fifeshire Regiment of Fencible Infantry. Botany had 

 long been his absorbing hobby and in 1798, when in London on recruit- 

 ing service, he used the facilities for study available in the house of Sir 

 Joseph Banks at Soho Square, with its rich herbarium and library and 

 its erudite botanist-librarian Jonas Dryander in attendance. Evidently 

 impressed by his enthusiasm and ability, Banks (cf. Historical Records 

 of New South Wales 4: 265) offered Brown in December 1800 the post 

 of naturalist aboard H. M. S. Investigator then being fitted out under 

 the captaincy of Matthew Flinders for a voyage to New Holland. His 

 salary was to be £420 a year. Brown accepted immediately and came 

 to London to ascertain in Banks's library and herbarium what was then 

 known about New Holland. He thus set out with a well-prepared mind. 

 William Westall was appointed 'Landscape and Figure Draughtsman' 

 and Ferdinand Bauer 'Botanical Draughtsman', both with a salary of 

 £315 (Historical Records of New South Wales 4: 304, 344). All signed 



