Ea 
ae a 
JOHN ZIER, F.L.S. 1038 
regard to the ‘ English Botany ’of the former, which Samuel Curtis 
says was brought out in opposition to Mr. Curtis’s ‘Flora Lon- 
friendly botanical intercourse with him; and I record it now 
merely that the public may understand the real state of the case.” 
8, of course, impossible to form a clear opinion as to the 
; but the insinuation of Zier’s connection with 
the ‘Flora Londinensis’ shows no friendly feeling on the part 
of Smith. 
But if there was no foundation for this insinuation, was there any 
ground for that made by Smith in 1798, and repeated by George 
Jackson in 1819? Undoubtedly there was; and it is this which is 
established by the MSS. mentioned at the beginning of this notice. 
eorge Don,} when describing Zieria, mentions “ Mr. John Zier, a 
learned and industrious Polish botanist, who assisted Mr. Dickson in 
. 
er 
-_— 
an 
Mr. Carruthers has kindly assisted me, has convinced us both that 
the descriptions in Dickson's ‘ Fasciculi’ (1785-1801) were in 
steat part, written by Zier. That these MSS. are no transcripts, 
of them taken from specimens in Dickson’s Herbarium, and so 
indicated : thus, « Lichen junceus M. . . . . Hospitatur in : 
D—ni.” “Dickson makes no reference td having received any help 
in his work; but besides this aid from Zier, he was assisted by 
Robert Brown.§ If any doubt remained as to Zier’s connection 
_ * ‘Memoirs,’ p. xii. 
+ Writing to Goodenough, Nov. 9, 1797, Smith says “I am very glad pestood 
Curtis did not accept my oe, though I would then steadily haye kept to it. 
Memoir, i. 535. 
} Gen. Syst. i. 794 (1831). 
£ ie aoe ¥ 
§ “The fourth fasciculus of Dickson’s ‘ Plante Cryptogamicm,’ but not, I 
believe, the third, was largely indebted to [Brown]; but it would be rime 
impossible, to determine what portions of the text were actually furnished 
_ by him” (Bennett's Preface to Miscell. Works of R. Brown, I. v.). . 
