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favourable in every respect. For muny years it was under the bead 
of Thwaites, a man of real merit, but who thought a bota 
garden in a tropical country should ve in some manner a reduced co boy 
of the virgin forest. This system, more original than meritorious, 
excludes any methodical arrangement of plants and necessarily restricts 
the number of specimens. Dr. H. Trimen, the successor of Dr. Thwaites, 
as soon as he arrived in Ceylon, realised the disadvantages of the plan of 
his predecessor. , ‘i'o distribute over an area of 60 h ectares, without any 
order, a great number of plants, for the most part not labelled, was to 
fatally embarrass the scientific use of the rich Veneta e had má 
brought together. So Dr. 'Trimen did not hesitate 
arrangement of plants according to the natural system, imd: to label shies 
as far as it was possible to do so. With branch establishments upon the 
plain and M aim the mountain, the garden of Peradeniya has before it a 
brilliant futu 
Dr. Trimen has not merely carried out a most efficient pes thorough 
E c. any n of his department, but he has signalised his term of office 
by the production of three volumes accompanied by an adis of plates of 
the long-desired Handbook of the Flora of Ceylon. (For notices of 
these volumes, reference may be made to the Kew Bulletin for 1894, 
pp. 34 and 227, and 1895, p. 236.) A final volume alone remains to 
complete this invaluable work. It is satisfactory to record that Dr. 
rimen has been * given by the unanimous vote of the Legislative 
Council a special allowance in addition to his pension for the last six 
months of the year; in order to complete the scientific work upon which 
he is now engaged,” 
As one of the founders of the colony of British Central Africa; 
as a soe successful pioneer in its agricultural development and as 
an acti romoter of the botanical investigations of its flora, 
JOHN Bre CHANAN, C.M.G., who died on his way home on March 9th, 
deserves a record. He first went to Africa in 1876, in the service of the 
Church of Scotland Mission, and soon, without any practical knowledge, 
became à planter o coffee, sugar, and tobaceo, and in building up a 
large and successful pasini for himself he Abaid the future of the 
colony in industrial enterprise. A reference to Sir Henry Johnston’s 
report on this subject, reprinted in the Kew Bulletin, 1895, p. 190, will 
give some idea of the extent of his operations. Like many busy men, 
most of them being represented by several specimens. Sets of this 
collection were distributed to eight of the principal herbaria of the 
world. Many of the novelties have been published in the Kew 
Bulletin, and in Hooker's Icones Plantarum, and many still remain 
undeseribed. 
Although not one of the pioneers in British Central Africa, 
ALEXANDER Carson laboured hard - successfully in developing 
t uchanan, contributed 
Ms time to time 
tin, 
