Daniel Oliver. 



Xlll 



Botany appeared in the publications of the Linnean Society. Prominent 

 among these are annotated lists of plants collected in various remote and then 

 little known parts of the world, including the mountains of eastern tropical 

 Africa, certain Pacific islands, and the Arctic regions. Of the papers of 

 greater length, the " Botany of Speke and Grant's Mle Expedition," the 

 " Botany of Everard im Thurn's Eoraima Expedition," and " List of the Plants 

 Collected by H. B. Guppy in the Islands of Bougainville Straits " are note- 

 worthy examples. Many of these collections were from fresh territories or 

 little known regions and contained numerous highly interesting new generic 

 types, especially West Tropical African and Malayan collections. But, like 

 the herbarium, Oliver's work embraced the phanerogamic flora of the world 

 in all its families, and the more complex or difficult families such as the 

 Olacacese, Hamamelidaceee, Flacourtiaceae, Utriculariaceae, and Loranthacese, 

 had a special attraction for him. Begonia was a favourite genus, and he had 

 the good fortune to discriminate Begoniella of the Andes and Hillebrandia, 

 peculiar to Hawaii, the only other genera commonly admitted in the 

 Begoniaceae. 



Oliver was author of the first and several succeeding editions of the Official 

 Guide to the Kew Museums and also of the 22nd to the 30th Edition of the 

 Official Guide to the Koyal Gardens and Pleasure Grounds, Kew, 1863-85. 

 These, as well as his educational books, are written in simple yet clear language, 

 within the grasp of the multitude. His lectures were equally lucid, though 

 not of an oratorical character. He adopted the deceased Prof. Henslow's type 

 method of teaching Systematic Botany by the use of schedules, and his little 

 book, ' Lessons in Elementary Botany,' embodies the principles of this 

 method, preceded by chapters on Elementary Structural and Physiological 

 Botany. There are many editions of this admirable primer ; the first appeared 

 in 1864 and the last in 1910. His 'First Book in Indian Botany' is on 

 similar lines and has run through nine impressions, 1869-1911. His 

 ' Illustrations of the Principal Natural Orders of the Vegetable Kingdom ' 

 deserves special mention in this connection. It contains upwards of 100 

 excellent hand-coloured plates by W. H. Fitch, with dissections and explana- 

 tory letterpress. The first volume of Oliver's 'Flora of Tropical Africa' 

 was published in 1868, and the work was advanced by him, assisted by other 

 Botanists, to the third volume, in 1877, when stress of other official work and 

 lack of assistants prevented its continuation. 



For a number of years Oliver edited and was almost sole contributor to 

 Hooker's ' Icones Plantarum,' in which he published many novelties detected 

 in various collections from nearly all parts of the world, including A. Henry's 

 earlier discoveries in Central and Western China. I may here relate an 

 incident in this connection. Among A. Henry's novelties were specimens 

 bearing leaves like those of an iEsculus and terminal clusters of flowers of the 

 ordinary Viburnum structure. This singular combination was described and 

 figured by Oliver as a new genus under the name of Actinotinus. Some 

 months later Oliver came upon another puzzle in which papilionaceous flowers 



