20 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Gardens at Kew and at the British Museum (Natural History), South 

 Kensington, and the Linnean Society, and in friendly co-operation 

 with the United States Government Plant-Bureau. On the R.H.S. 

 alone, however, rests the financial responsibility, which has hitherto 

 been the chief obstacle in the way of this absolutely necessary inter- 

 national scientific publication. Anyone unacquainted with Pritzel's 

 work can form some idea of its paramount importance by considering 

 that if he wanted to find a picture of some rare plant he might hunt 

 through the British Museum library for a week, and then perhaps 

 not find it, whereas with ' Pritzel ' at hand to refer to he would 

 find it in one minute. 



" In 1913 the R.H.S. began to raise the required amount, the 

 International Horticultural Exhibition held in 191 2 starting the 

 Fund with a donation of £250, followed by £100 from the Veitch 

 Memorial Trustees, and the Council of the R.H.S. voted £250, to 

 which the Council have since added another £250 to enable the work 

 to be begun. The work has now been actually started, the typists 

 having accommodation found for them, through Sir David Prain's 

 kindness, at Kew, and the whole is under the immediate supervision 

 of the following Committee, viz. Professor L Bayley Balfour, F.R.S., 

 V.M.H. ; Mr. E. A. Bowles, M.A., V.M.H. ; Mr. F. J. Hanbury, F.L.S. ; 

 Captain Arthur W. Hill, M.A., F.L.S. ; Dr. B. Daydon Jackson, Ph.D., 

 F.L.S. ; Mr. Gerald W. E. Loder, M.A., F.L.S..; Sir Daniel Morris, 

 K.C.M.G., J.P., V.M.H. ; Sir David Prain, C.M.G., CLE., F.R.S., 

 V.M.H. ; Dr. A. B. Rendle, F.R.S., V.M.H. ; Dr. O. Stapf, F.R.S. ; 

 Sir Harry J. Veitch, V.M.H. — to which, as has been said, will be 

 added direct assistance from Kew, South Kensington, the Linnean 

 Society, and the U.S.A. Plant-Bureau. 



" It now remains to collect the remainder of the finances required, 

 and the Council hope that everyone, whether a Fellow of the Society 

 or not, who is interested in plants botanically or horticulturally, 

 will make some contribution to a work which for the next 100 years 

 at least will be the standard work of the kind, and will form the 

 basis of a future similar revision by our grandchildren or great- 

 grandchildren in the next century. 



" It is proposed to publish the names of all subscribers of £1 is. 

 and upwards in the Introduction to the new work, so that they may 

 be known to those who come after as those to whom the new 

 ' Pritzel ' is due." 



Nearly forty years ago I seriously entertained the project of 

 revising Pritzel's " Index," and discussed it with a well-known 

 botanical bookseller and publisher. He dissuaded me from the 

 project by pointing out that there was then no scarcity of copies, 

 the volume being still obtainable from the publishers, and that the 

 relatively short additional period of 15 or 16 years, even with the 

 amalgamation of both volumes of " Pritzel," would not command 

 a large sale ; consequently no publisher would be likely to take the 

 risk upon himself. The prospect therefore was that, after many 



