THE 



HISTORY OF AITON'S 'HORTUS KEWENSIS.' 



By JAMES BRITTEN, F.L.S. 



The question having often been raised as to the authority 

 for the names pubUshed in the two editions of Aiton's Hortus 

 Kewensis, it may be worth while to put on record the results 

 of notes which have been made from time to time in the 

 National Herbarium and in that of the Royal Gardens, Kew, 

 which contain the material on which the work was based. 



The fact that neither of the Aitons wrote the botanical descrip- 

 tions of the new species published in either edition is generally 

 recognized." There is, indeed, no reason to think that either 

 possessed botanical (apart from horticultural) knowledge sufficient 

 to enable them to undertake this or the bibliographical portion of 

 the work, although, as will be seen later, the share of the younger 

 in the preparation of ed. 2 was greater than is generally supposed. 

 The fullest account of the elder Alton is that by Mr. W. B. 

 Hemsley in the Journal of the Kew Guild for 1902 (p. 87), and in 

 this he is not credited with any knowledge of botany. 



The editors of the two editions of the Hortus were Dryander 

 (ed. 1 and part of ed. 2) and Robert Brown (for the latter part of 

 the second edition). In the first edition (1789) Dryander utilized 

 largely the MS. descriptions of Solander (f 1782), whom he had 

 succeeded as librarian to Banks and whose MSS. he had annotated 

 and augmented. I propose to deal first with the share which 

 Solander and Dryander had in the work, and then with the part 

 which Brown took in it. 



* It may be noted however that Haworth, throughout his Mesemhryan- 

 tJiemum (1794), refers to the classification and descriptions as byAiton : " Aiton 

 in his Hortus Kewensis, published 1789, described 70 species, 21 of which were 

 new " (p. 95). In this work and in his arrangement of Aloe (Trans. Linn. Soc. 

 vii. 6) Haworth gratefully acknowledges "valuable and liberal information" 

 received from Aiton. Salisbury, who, as we shall see later, differentiated the 

 part taken by Dryander and Solander in Hort. Kew. definitely attributes certain 

 species to Aiton — '^ HeUconia Biliai Ait. in Hort. Kew." (Trans. Hort. Soc. i. 

 273); others he cites without any authority — '' Alpinia occidcntalis in Hort. 

 Kew." {op. cit. 282). 



Journal of Botany, Nov. 1912. [Supplement III.] 



