PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 760 



nature as living beings, of their relations to one another and to other environ- 

 ments, of the stimuli to which they respond, and of the struggle for existence 

 that results in the survival of certain forms and the disappearance of others. In 

 (his way also will be gained a conception of the true meaning and place of classi- 

 fication as an indispensable instrument for accurate determination and record, and 

 not as an end in itself. To one that has once gained a true insight into the 

 pleasure and worth of such studies, collections made for the sake of mere posses- 

 sion or lists of species discovered in a locality will not suffice. Many questions 

 will arise which will prove a constant source of new interest. From such studies 

 a deep and growing love for botany hae in not a few cases arisen. 



The British flora has interested me for upwards of forty years, and has 

 occupied much of my attention during that time — not only as desirous to aid by 

 my own efforts to extend our knowledge of it, but also, as a teacher, seeking to 

 assist my students to become able to do their parts also, and making use of the 

 materials within reach to enable me to help them. Thus our present knowledge 

 of the plants of our own country has become known to me, and the difficulties of 

 acquiring that knowledge have also become known through both my own ex- 

 perience and those of my students. The nature of the hindrances and difficulties 

 that at present bar the way has also become familiar, as well as the steps to be 

 taken to clear some of them away and to make the path less difficult to those who 

 come after us; and I have also gained a fairly good acquaintance with the means 

 at the command of students of the floras of other countries, so as to have a 

 standard for comparison in the estimate to be formed of the condition of matters 

 in our own country. 



In how far is the present provision for the study of the flora of the British 

 Islands sufficient and satisfactory ? 



I venture to hope that the subject will be regarded as among those for the 

 consideration of which the British Association was formed, and that a favourable 

 view will be taken of the conclusions which 1 take this opportunity to lay before 

 you. What, then, is the present provision for the study of our plants ? Since 

 the days of Morrison and Bay there have been many workers, especially during 

 the past century ; and an extensive literature has grown up, in the form both of 

 books and of papers, the latter more or loss comprehensive, in the scientific 

 journals and in the transactions of societies. These papers contain much that is 

 of great value; but, owing to the absence of any classified index, most of the 

 information in it is beyond the reach of anyone, except at the expenditure of 

 much time and labour. The constantly increasing accumulation of new publica- 

 tions makes the need for a classified index always more urgent ; for the mass of 

 literature is at present one of the greatest obstacles to the undertaking of new 

 investigations because of the uncertainty whether they may not have been already 

 undertaken and overlooked through want of time or opportunity to search the 

 mass exhaustively. 



While the early writers of descriptive floras sought to include every species of 

 plant known to occur in Britain, this has not been attempted during the past 

 seventy or eighty years, and instead of one great work we now have monographs 

 of the greater groups, such as Babington's ' Manual ' and Hooker's ' Student's 

 Flora ' of the vascular plants, Braithwaite's ' Mossflora,' &c. Local floras still, 

 in a good many cases, aim at including all plants known to grow apparently wild 

 in the districts to which they refer; but they are often little more than lists 

 of species and varieties and of localities in which these have been found. In 

 some, however, there are descriptions of new forms and notes of general value, 

 which are apt to be overlooked because of the place in which they appear. 



The early works were necessarily not critical in their treatment of closely allied 

 species and varieties, but they are valuable as giving evidence of what plants 

 were supposed to be native in England when they were published. Even the 

 works that were iesued after Linna?us had established the binominal nomenclature 

 for a time related almost wholly to England. Sibbald in ' Scotia Illustrata ' 

 (1684) enumerated the plants believed by him to be native in Scotland, and of those 

 then cultivated. Between his book and Lightfoote ' Flora Scotia,' published in 

 1777, very little relating to the flora of Scotland appeared. Irish plants were still 

 later in being carefully studied. 



The floras of Hudson, Withering, Lightfoot, and Smith, all of which indwda 



