Cxl PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Society and was its first Treasurer ; to Thomas Andrew Knight, who 

 was elected second President in 1811, and reigned — if we may use the 

 term — for twenty- seven years ; to Sir Joseph Banks, a large portrait 

 of whom by T. Phillips, R.A., at present hangs in the Council Room, 

 and whose house at Spring Grove, Isleworth, has only recently been 

 pulled down to make way for a stately mansion built by another 

 Fellow of the Society and staunch lover of horticulture— Mr. Andrew 

 Pears ; to Richard Anthony Salisbury, who was the first Secretary 

 after the Society had been incorporated by Royal Charter in 1809, but 

 in reality the second, the Rev. Mr. Cleeves being the first appointed 

 Secretary to the Society. Mr. Salisbury was a busy botanical author, 

 and his name is commemorated in that beautiful Conifer known as the 

 " Maidenhair " tree — Salisburia adiantifolia, a name, however, which, 

 we are sorry to say, has had to give way to the less expressive one of 

 Ginkgo biloba. Joseph Sabine (1770-1837), Dr. Lindley (1799-1865), 

 and Andrew Murray (1812-78) also receive full notices. Dr. Lindley, 

 it may be remarked, after passing as an assistant through Sir J oseph 

 Banks' library, occupied the post of garden-clerk at Chiswick Gardens, 

 and afterwards that of Assistant Secretary to the Society. Mr. Murray 

 was the author of a work entitled "The Book of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society " in addition to those mentioned in the "Index." 



The collectors of the Society — David Douglas (1789-1834), George 

 Don (1798-1856), John Forbes (1798-1823), John Damper Parks 

 (1822), John Potts (1822), James McRae (1823-30), and John Reeves 

 (whose Wistaria is still at Chiswick) — are all referred to, but we 

 notice that the place and date of Potts' death is not recorded. He 

 died at Chiswick on October 5, 1822, having returned from a short trip 

 to China and the East Indies, where his constitution was shattered. 

 The name of Theodor Hartweg, however, is omitted from the " Index," 

 perhaps purposely, as he was a foreigner, although we find Dillenius 

 of Darmstadt (1687-1747) referred to. Anyway, the plants collected 

 by Hartweg for the Society during his travels in Mexico, Guatemala, 

 Peru, and California from 1836 onwards are referred to under Mr. 

 Geo. Bentham of " Genera Plantarum " fame — " Plantse Hartwegianae, 

 1857." 



An interesting feature about Messrs. Britten and Boulger's 

 "Index" is the fact that it covers a period of about 350 years, which 

 gives us an average of less than six notable botanists or gardeners for 

 each year. John Gerard, whose " Herball " is well known, seems to 

 be the earliest man noted, having been born at Nantwich, Cheshire, 

 in 1545; he died at London 1612. Next we find Wm. Copland (1556- 

 1569), who wrote a "Boke of the Properties of Herbes " ; Richard 

 Corbet (alias Poynter), who flourished as a nurseryman at Twickenham 

 in 1597 ; John Parkinson (1567-1650), the King's herbalist, and author 



