LTNNEAN SOCIETY OP LOJfDOK. XIU 



tempt at further improvement was generally scouted as an in- 

 fringement of established laws. The new Jussieuan system, al- 

 though it had been promulgated for twenty-seven years, was 

 scarcely known out of France. In Germany and the North it 

 was quite ignored. In England, Eobert Brown's labours had 

 already established him as one of the great reformers of the science ; 

 but his works were not in general circulation, and the Linnseans 

 still reigned paramount. It was only in France that DeCandoUe's 

 ' Flore Frangaise ' had brought the study of plants according to 

 their natural affinities within reach of the merest tyro ; and many 

 were those I then knew, whom, like myself, that work alone had 

 attracted to the science, notwithstanding the ridicule and abuse 

 with which it was assailed by the would-be conservatives of the 

 time, several of whom, like Picot de Lapeyrouse, had then consi- 

 derable influence. I returned to England temporarily in 1823, 

 and finally in 1826, with my firm conviction of the paramount 

 importance of the natural system strengthened by the personal 

 acquaintance with Jussieu, De Candolle, and other eminent French 

 botanists to which I had been admitted, and could only feel sur- 

 prise at the admiration felt in this country for those Linn^ean 

 classes which I had only half learnt as a matter of history. The 

 first of our botanists from whom I received marked attentions 

 and civilities was our then President, the late Sir James Edward 

 Smith ; and he vainly endeavoured to impress me with the simpli- 

 city, practical utility, and consequent superiority of the Linnaean 

 arrangement. Even those who had begun to look upon the study 

 of natural orders as a higher branch, to be entered upon by bota- 

 nists who were already proficient in the science, insisted that it 

 was unsuited for beginners or for those who confined themselves to 

 local botany. The few admirers of Jussieu in this country then 

 generally admitted as an iindeniable axiom a proposition retained " 

 to this day, by force of habit, in the Preface to one of our standard 

 Floras (which gives it up in practice), that long experience " has 

 proved to every unprejudiced mind that no system can be com- 

 pared to that of the immortal Swede, for the facility with which 

 it enables any one, hitherto unpractised in Botany, to ascertain 

 the genus of some previously unknown plant." To this I could 

 only oppose my own experience, and that of friends, who appeared 

 to me to have determined most of the plants of their neighbour- 

 hood, by the sole aid of the ' Flore Francaise,' far more readily 

 than those who had invariably to begin by counting stamens and 

 pistils. With these impressions on my mind, it was but natural 



