xliv NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
became an authority on our indigenous Flora, especially as 
regards his favourite groups the Mosses and Hepatics. A little 
later, when he went to the Pyrenees, he made such beautiful 
collections of the rarest alpine plants, and so many discoveries 
among the hitherto little known mosses, as to prove his capacity 
both as collector and painstaking student of a new flora. I 
cannot help thinking that it was this thoroughness of Spruce's 
work in everything that he undertook that so greatly impressed 
Mr. Bentham (who had himself collected in the Pyrenees and 
published a catalogue of its plants) as to cause him to undertake 
the enormous labour and responsibility of acting as his agent 
in the naming and distribution of his South American plants, a 
labour which, notwithstanding his other botanical work, including 
the Flora of Hongkojig and the Ha7idbook of the British Flora^ 
which were being written and published at the same time, he 
continued to the very last, that is, during the twelve years that 
Spruce was able to send home collections. 
No sooner did his early consignments from the neighbourhood 
of Para reach England than the expectations of his friends were 
fully justified ; and Mr. Bentham wrote to him : "The specimens 
are excellent, and being so well packed, they have arrived in 
admirable order. ... It is one of the best tropical collections as 
to quality of specimens that I have seen." Sir William Hooker 
wrote to the same effect, and this high quality was maintained 
throughout his whole expedition, except in those cases where 
delays or exposure to damp or floods when they had passed 
out of Spruce's hands caused more or less injury. 
Sir Joseph Hooker writes me on this point, as regards some 
of the later collections : "I can remember the arrival of one 
consignment to Bentham at Kew, and marvelling at the extra- 
ordinary fine condition of the specimens, their completeness for 
description, and the great fulness and value of the information 
regarding them inscribed on the tickets." 
Professor Daniel Oliver, who assisted Mr. Bentham in the 
work of distributing the specimens, also writes me on these 
particulars : " Mr. Spruce's specimens were most carefully col- 
lected, dried, and packed, extraordinarily so considering the 
difficulties of all kinds with which he had to contend ; and what 
was of special value, they were accompanied by beautifully legible 
labels giving precisely the information as to locality, habitat, 
habit, etc., required to supplement the dried specimens. I may add, 
the duties of a trained collector could not have been better done. 
The collections were specially rich in arborescent species, the ob- 
taining of which must often have been of considerable difficulty." 
