THE HISTORY OP AITON S ' HORTUS KEWENSIS 6 



Works that Brown, " after the death of Dryander in 1810, bestowed 

 [on the second edition] the same attention which had been de- 

 voted by Dryander to the earUer portion and by Solanchr to the 

 first edition." It was no doubt from Bennett that Asa Gray 

 derived the impression that " it is hardly proper that either the 

 elder or the younger Aiton should be quoted for these species, 

 since the first edition was prepared by Solander and the second 

 revised by Dryander as to vols. 1 and 2, and the remainder by Mr. 

 Brown." (Amer. Journ. Sci. xl. 10 (1841).) 



But, although he was in no way concerned in its publication, 

 the first edition of the Hortus was largely indebted to Solander's 

 work as preserved in the MSS. connected with the Banksian 

 herbarium already referred to ; and Stokes's statement that his 

 " observations enrichd the first edit, of Hort. Kew. with specific 

 characters and descriptions " " is strictly accurate. Another note 

 from Stokes's very interesting volume shows even more definitely 

 Solander's relation to the Hortus : — " Aiton the father . . . 

 explained to me the plan of the Catalogue which appeared some 

 years after under the title of Hort. Kew. Aiton carried his 

 specimens and doubts to Banks's library as I did those of the 

 Upton garden, where they were examined and resolved by the 

 polite and candid Solander, as his manuscript descriptions and 

 specific characters in the British Museum will testify." f Smith, 

 in his memoir of Solander, | says it was he "who reduced our 

 garden plants to order and laid the foundations of the Hortus 

 Keivensis"; but he in no way suggests Solander's connection wdth 

 its production. 



The contemporary best acquainted with the MSS. mentioned 

 was B. A. Salisbury, whose reference to them may be quoted : 

 " Solander's manuscript determinations of genera and species, 

 some of which have been published in the first edition of Hortus 

 Keivensis, are the only evidence by which [we] can give our 

 verdict respecting his abilities, for he died in 1782 ; but great as 

 they unquestionably were, and putting all Dryander's verbal com- 

 munications out of the question, the latter has left abundant 

 proofs, often on the very same papers, of being a superior 

 botanist." § The words italicized show that Salisbury was familiar 

 with the MSS., which indeed must be regarded as a joint 

 production of the two botanists, whose handwritings are often 



* Botanical Commentaries (1830), p. cxxvi. 



t Op. cit. cxviii. 



I Correspondence of Linnceiis, ii. 3. 



§ Liriogavue, 8. The relative merits of Dryander and Solander need not 

 here be discussed, but Salisbury, who was on terms of intimacy with Dryander 

 who visited him at Chapel Allerton in 1789 {op. cit. 22), elsewhere contrasted 

 them to the credit of the former : " Solander preferred dried specimens that he 

 might not use characters liable to disappear in an herbarium ; Dryander on the 

 contrary never trusted to a dried plant if he could see it living" {op. cit. 128). 

 Salisbury's statement (p. 8) that Smith in the Supplement to Rees " made an 

 invidious comparison between [Dryander] and Solander, which must not go 

 down to posterity uncorrected " is inaccurate: no such comparison is made by 

 Smith, whose notice of Dryander is warmly eulogistic. 



