n8 ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
Genera. 
Plantarum 
and Index 
Kenuensts. 
itself with cultivated garden plants, the plates in the leones are 
prepared from dried material in the Herbarium. The figures are in 
Hooker’s outline and uncoloured. Up to Sir William Hooker’s 
, death, the plates were made from his herbarium ex- 
lCOTlCS 
Plantarum dusively, but since then the dried plants in the Kew 
Herbarium have been drawn upon generally. At the 
present time it is edited by the director, and the expense of preparing 
the plates is covered by the proceeds of a legacy left in trust by 
George Bentham. Up to the present, 2,850 plates have been published. 
No account of the literary activity of Kew would be complete 
without some reference to the Genera Plantarum and the Index 
Kewensis. The first is the collaborated work of G. 
Bentham and Sir Joseph Hooker. It contains a de- 
scription of every genus of flowering plants, arranged 
and classified in accordance with its natural affinities. 
It is the basis on which are founded the arrangement 
and nomenclature of the living plants, dried specimens, and most 
of the museum material at Kew. Some idea of the magnitude of 
this work may be gathered from the fact that it contains more 
than 3,500 pages of condensed descriptive matter in Latin, and that 
it occupied its authors nearly a quarter of a century. 
The Index Kewensis, which is in a sense complementary to the 
preceding work, is an alphabetical list of all botanical names of plants, 
with a citation of the work, and a reference to the page, in which 
each name originally appeared. Its inception we owe to Charles 
Darwin, who in 1881 made arrangements to meet the expense of its 
preparation out of his own estate. The two original volumes, which 
include all names published up to 1885, were prepared at Kew by 
Mr. B. D. Jackson, with help from Sir Joseph Hooker. Such a work 
will never, of course, be complete, so long as new plants are discovered 
and new names given, but quinquennial supplements are prepared 
at Kew and published under the supervision of the director. 
Since 1887 the official organ of Kew has been the “ Bulletin of 
Miscellaneous Information.” In this work is published information 
which comes to Kew in the course of official routine, and 
is likely to be of value and interest to the public. Much 
of it deals with economic plants, old and new, and their 
products, actual and prospective. It discusses the introduction of 
such plants to British colonies and possessions, their cultivation, the 
Kew 
Bulletin. 
