ii. 
“ He always took a lively interest in horticultural exhibitions, both on the Continent and in this country, and was 
frequently called on to act in the capacity of judge, especially where Orchids or new plants were concerned. At the 
several Horticultural and Botanical Congresses Professor Reichenbach generally took a prominent part. 
“Reichenbach was possessed of a distinct individuality, which was as remarkable as his curiously crabbed 
handwriting, which few could decipher. Short and, till his recent illness, massive in stature, with a keen, penetrating 
glance and aquiline nose, his features revealed something of the impetuous temper of the man, and of his occasional biting 
sarcasm. His devotion to Orchids amounted to a consuming passion; not a scrap, nor a note, nor a sketch however 
rough, came amiss to him if it related to an Orchid. To him meals and clothes were necessary evils, but his herbarium 
was a prime necessity of existence. The amount of his work was prodigious. Of its quality the botanists of the future 
will judge better than we. One thing, however, is obvious, and especially so to those who have had the opportunity of 
comparing his work with Lindley’s. In Lindley’s time Orchids were, it may be said, counted by the score, while in our 
times the estimate has to be made by the hundred, if not the thousand. Lindley, with his clear perception, logical mind, 
and relatively small material, was able to draw sharply defined, expressive characters in few words, arranged with rare 
skill. Reichenbach, with a totally different frame of mind, was overburdened with the ever-increasing mass of material. 
His descriptions and comparisons were often singularly felicitous, his knowledge of detail enormous, but lacking 
co-ordination and precision. He never gave us in a compendious form a complete synopsis of the genera and species. 
His immense collections and notes will require years of concentration for collation and revision, for his publications are 
not only extremely numerous, but scattered through a wide range of publications in almost all European languages. 
‘Of his self-denying labours and the constant services he rendered to Orchid growers in all parts of the world we 
have already spoken. Some recognition, but none that can be fairly deemed adequate, was conferred on him in this 
country by his election as one of the foreign members of our Linnean Society ; and as an honorary Fellow of the Royal 
Horticultural Society.” 
Soon after these appreciative lines were penned, when all the botanists of Europe were wondering how the 
famous, the unique herbarium had been devised, an extract from Reichenbach’s will was published in the Gardeners’ 
Chronicle. ‘Ne quote the important part :-— 
“My herbarium and my botanical library, my instruments, collection of seeds, &c., accrue to the Imperial Hof 
Museum in Vienna, under the condition that the preserved Orchids and drawings of Orchids shall not be exhibited for 
twenty-five years from the date of my death have elapsed. Until this time my collection shall be preserved in sealed 
cases. In the event of the Vienna Institute declining to observe these conditions, the collection falls under the same 
conditions to the Botanical Garden at Upsala. Should the last-mentioned Institute decline the legacy, then to the 
Grayean Herbarium in Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. If declined by that Institute, then to the Jardin des 
Plantes, at Paris, but always under the same conditions, viz., of being sealed up for twenty-five years, in order that the 
inevitable destruction of the costly collection, resulting from the present craze for Orchids, may be avoided.” 
It is not too much to say that savants all the world over were shocked by this selfish withdrawal of 
treasures which should, so far as it was possible, have been made common property for students. We will not 
dwell upon a painful memory. That Reichenbach, our honoured chief, should do his best, when dying, to check the 
progress of those studies to which he had given his life, is humiliating to our common nature. We in England must 
work on, recovering the stores of information which he has buried:—and we shall succeed. Even if his specimens 
remain so well preserved as to be available for study, after their imprisonment for twenty-five years, the chances are that 
our labours during the same period will have rendered them obsolete. 
If it be needful to add a few words of the man personally, we must say that he was a delightful companion, 
amusing when most instructive, but never quite friendly. A certain irritability, not of temper but of nerves, arising 
perhaps from a severe illness in boyhood, checked all ease of communication. Those who admired his genius and 
his astonishing stores of knowledge found themselves unable to cheer that solitary life. They could never be sure of 
success whatever the attempt to please him. It must be feared that his life was not happy, in spite of scientific 
honours and renown such as few have won. Reichenbach had a longing for the distinctions which Courts confer, and 
was invested with several Orders; his peculiar, sharp wit, irrepressible in any company, was, however, ill calculated to 
gain him royal favour. He never married. 
Dr. John Lindley, was the first specialist in Europe to take up the general systematic study of this royal family 
of plants. He devoted ten years, z.e., from April, 1830, to October, 1840, to the production of his “ Genera and Species 
of Orchidaceous Plants,” in which work 1980 species are referred to or described. The actual dried materials and 
M.S. notes, drawings, &c., are now in the Herbarium at Kew. Of course, other botanists had studied Orchids before 
Lindley, but it was he who paved the way for his great successor, Reichenbach. Linnaeus had framed the Orchids into 
the two groups Gynandria Monandria and Gynandria Diandria. Jussieu, Swartz, Willdenow, Robert Brown, 
Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth; Richard, A. Du Petit Thouars, La Llave and Heexarzar 
his coadjutor, F. Bauer, the botanical artist, are all cited by Lindle 
these flowers. 
and Blume, to say nothing of 
y as his predecessors or contemporaries in the study of 
And now, on the eve of the first number of a new series of the Reichenbachia (every two volumes of the work will 
be a complete series), we beg to assure our subscribers that there will be nothing lacking on our part to continue 
the work in the fulness of its acknowledged value. Assisted by many friends, our desire to produce better and better 
results will assuredly be fulfilled. 
Ruskin tells us that the greatest works of art have had their origin “in noble co-operation, and not by com- 
