INTRODUCTION, 5 
That the botanical work of a man of such enthusiasm, so true a lover 
of nature’s works, so indefatigable sie unsparing of himself in their pursuit, 
should stand in danger of being lost to science would be deplorable. It 
is in the hope of rescuing some parts at least from oblivion that I have 
undertaken ew paper 
papers 
One thing strikes a reviewer of Brown’s work as curious and in some 
degree un unexpec cted and Inconsistent. He avowedly published his new 
sige ith reviously described, on the ground that the 
imens on which the latter 3 were founded were for the most part in Euro 
any cas 
cases he had no choice but to describe his plants as new. This may be 
common-sense, but it is not science ; though it is difficult to see what else, 
circumstanced as he was, he could well have’ done short of giving up the 
study ; and it would have been not only a pardonable but even a laudable 
have greatly assisted future workers had he given us lucid descriptions 
accompanied by accurate and well-selected illustrations, together with 
ample material of the plants described, for future study, at the same time 
differences, and his reasons for considering it to be new. Inste f th 
his descriptions are for Cea neg part bald; he gives in general no ex 
planatory notes o or comparisons whatever; and his see 
com 
tions, while, I believe, se a done and accurate as regards leaf-outlin 
give no idea of the general appearance of the plant, and, as a rule, no detail 
at all, while they are usually on too small a scale to be of any practical 
value. This applies particularly to his drawings of peristomes, while o 
areolation he takes practically no account. It may quite possibly have 
annuls the value of the description in nearly Aig case where there are 
no specimens in his herbarium to elucidate them 
It is certainly surprising “gis Peta gey) as he did the adequacy 
of many of the figures in such works as the “ Flora Antarctica” to give 
the means of identifying the ats he should have been satisfied with 
what seem to us the perfunctory repetitions of similar drawings on plate 
after plate which most of his figures exhibit. Probably his intense delight 
fai led to be rouse Sg when he came to putting them ‘into words or 
delineating them for atieighsinl So a phanerogamic botanist with a 
keen eye for fine colour distinctions is apt to describe colour varieties which 
are very poorly borne out by his herbarium specimens themselves, a few 
months after laying in! 
