& Sir William Jackson Hooker. 
ranged immediately for their publication, drew up the letter- 
em and so brought out, between 1838 and 1842, the well- 
nown work entitled ‘‘Genera Filicum, or Illustrations of the 
Ferns and other allied Genera.’ His large quarto, “ Filices 
Exotice, in Colored Figures and Descriptions of Exotic Ferns, 
chiefly of such as are cultivated in the Royal Gardens of Kew,” 
in Scotland, and who soon became “the most distinguished 
botanical artist in Europe.” ‘A second Century o rns” 
(imp. 8vo,) was published in 1860 and 1861, the First Century 
being the tenth and closing volume of the Icones Plantarum. — 
But the principal systematic work of these later years was his 
“ Species Filicum, being Descriptions of the known Ferns, ..... 
accompanied with numerous figures,” in 5 volumes, 8vo. The 
first volume of this work appeared in 1846, the last only a year 
and a half ago. 
The crowd of new Ferns and new knowledge which had accu- 
mulated in the interval of seventeen or eighteen years, demanded 
large revision and augmentation of the earlier volumes to bring 
them up to the level of the later ones. Moreover, a compendi- 
ous work on this favorite class of plants was much needed. 
Both objects might be well accomplished by a synopsis of 
known Ferns in a single volume, to be for our day what Swartz’s 
Synopsis Filicum was just sixty yearsago. To this Sir William 
Teainn upon the verge of fourscore, undauntedly turned, as 
soon as the last sheets of the Species Filicum passed from his 
hands, devoting to it the time that remained after attending to 
his administrative duties. Upon it he steadily labored, with 
- unabated zeal and with powers almost unimpaired, conscien- 
_ tiously diligent and constitutionally buoyant to the last. He had 
made no small progress in the work, and had carried the sheets 
of the initial number through the press, when an attack of dip- 
theria, then epidemic at Kew, suddenly closed his long, honored, 
and most useful life. | 
sppuintcns he gath- 
