154 



BOTANY. 



The Department possesses also many valuable manuscripts, such 

 as those of Robert Brown, Solander, Ruiz and Pavon, Konig, Salis- 

 bury, and Miers, referring to plants now in the Herbarium, on which 

 these botanists have worked. 



The arrangement of the collections in the Public Gallery is now 

 in progress, but is not sufficiently advanced to permit the prepara- 

 tion of a guide to the cases at the time when these pages must 

 go to press. A general account of the plan being followed in this 

 arrangement and of the principal specimens is all that can now be 

 attempted. 



The Natural System of Classification, according to which the 

 plants in the Herbarium are arranged, is followed in the exhibition 

 cases in the public gallery. A half case next to the door on the left 

 side is devoted to a diagrammatic and tabular exposition of the great 

 groups of the Vegetable Kingdom. The series of specimens begins 

 in the next case with the Natural Order Ranunculacece, and the 

 principal Orders are represented in this and the following cases by 

 the help of dried specimens of the plants themselves, by fruits, and 

 by prepared sections of the woods. Diagrams are employed to 

 emphasise the characters on which the grouping is based. The use 

 of the same colour for the homologous structures throughout the 

 diagrams readily conveys to the eye the points of agreement and 

 difference on which the classification rests. The geological history 

 of each Natural Order is indicated on a table of the earth's strata; 

 and its present distribution on the surface of the earth is given on a 

 small map of the world. Descriptive labels give particular informa- 

 tion respecting each specimen. 



Dicotyledonous plants occupy three cases on the left side of the 

 gallery, and are followed by the Monocotyledonous Orders which fill the 

 last case on the same side, the two half cases at the end of the gallery, 

 and the first case returning towards the door. The Gymnosperms are 

 placed in the next case. Then follow the Cryptogams, a case being 

 devoted to the higher vascular Orders, and another to the lower 

 division of cellular plants. The series closes with an interesting- 

 collection of models of the larger British Fungi prepared by Sowerby 

 when he was engaged on his work on this group of plants. 



The larger specimens are placed in the tall cases in the centre of 

 the gallery following the order as far as possible of the specimens in 

 the wall cases. The right side of the first centre case is filled with 

 specimens of Dicotyledonous plants, such as sections of White Oak 

 and Walnut from Canada, of Eucalyptus, Acacia, Laportea, and other 

 trees from Australia, of the Cork Oak grown in Chelsea Gardens, 

 trunks of Ficus and Carallia with aerial roots, sent from Ceylon by 

 Dr. Trimen, stems of Bombax and Xantlioxylon with conical prickles, 

 and of Flacourtia and Gleditschia with branching thorns, and 

 anomalous stems of JBauliinia, Entada, and Dt/psis. The next two 

 centre cases are filled with Monocotyledonous plants, among which in 

 the first case are stems and sections of the Date palm, several species 

 of Areca, sections and fruit of the Palmyra palm, stem and fruit of 



