1886. J Presidents Address. xli 



remain in the Colony. Sir Joseph Banks lost no opportunity of 

 keeping Masson to his subordinate rdle of gardener and plant- collector, 

 and had no intention of letting him play the part of an exploring 

 traveller. The following curious passage in his correspondence is to 

 the point.: — " The plants you have sent home have succeeded so much 

 better than any you sent when you was last at the Cape that we have 

 every reason to praise your industry, and to see the propriety of a 

 search near the place of your residence, in preference to expensive 

 journeys up the country, which seldom produce an adequate return in 

 really ripe seeds. I hope that before this time jow have taken up 

 your head-quarters, as I directed, at False Bay. The most rare plants 

 to be met with in European herbariums are from that place, and j^ou 

 know that one rare described plant is worth two non-descripts." 



Botanists now-a-days are not of Sir Joseph Banks' opinion. With 

 them the non-descriptn are precisely the objects of special search, and 

 a botanical collector who should contentedly become a fixture on the 

 shores of False Bay, would speedily hear from his employers some- 

 thing to his disadvantage. 



Masson's second residence at the Cape was prolonged to nearly ten 

 years. The records of Alton's Hortus Kewensis show a regular inflow 

 of new plants from the Cape. Ultimately, in 1795, on the imminent 

 probability of war, he returned with his collections to England, hav- 

 ing had sharp experience during his West Indian trip how little 

 count is taken of scientific materials amid the exigencies of military 

 service. One of his first occupations was the publication of a fine 

 series of coloured plates of Stapelice, one of the most curious genera 

 of South African plants. It may be noted, in testimony of the zeal 

 and industry of this remarkable man, that despite the extent to which 

 the Colony has been travelled over by observant botanists since 

 his time, and to which railway transit has rendered accessible the 

 carroid habitats of these plants, there are still species figured by 

 Masson which have never been found since his time. Sir Henry 

 Barkly took an interest in Stapelias, and in his many journeys never 

 failed to ask after them wherever the conditions seemed suitable for 

 their growth. But the zealous endeavours of Civil Commissioners 

 and District Surgeons, anxious to humour what they deemed a whim 

 of His Excellency, did not succeed in re-discovering more than a 

 portion of Masson's findings. It is scarcely to be inferred from the 

 Avording of the preface to his work that Masson claimed to be himself 

 the artist who made these very fair figures of Stapeliae. He says : — 

 " In my various journeys through the deserts I have collected about 

 forty, and these I humbly present to the lovers of botany. The 

 figures were drawn in their native climate, and though they have 

 little to boast of in point of art, they probably exhibit the natural 

 appearance of the plants they represent better than figures made from 

 subjects growing in exotic houses can do." According to a notice in 

 the Journal of Science and Art. iv, 199 (1818), he is said to have found 

 among the Dutch troops at the Cape a soldier possessed of great skill 

 in drawing, and by this man's aid to have formed a considerable 

 portfolio of coloured drawings of objects which he deemed scarcely 

 capable of transfer to Europe." These sketches, identified by MS. 

 memoranda in Sir Joseph Banks' handwriting are preserved in the 

 Herbarium Library of the British Museum. It is not unlikely that 

 this soldier artist was the beforementioned D. Oldenburg-, of whom 



