136 
NATURE NOTES 
Mrs. F. E. Lemon, F.Z.S., Honorary Secretary of the Society 
for the Protection of Birds, seconded the amendment. She 
thought the words in question constituted a very dangerous 
innovation. 
The President said he saw no great objection to leaving the 
words out. He had a suggestion to make to the Council, how- 
ever. Frequently he saw ladies wearing plumes in their hats, 
and with the natural diffidence of his sex he felt a little nervous 
about suggesting to them that they should “ drop them.” He 
was afraid that such action might be resented. It had occurred 
to him that if those who saw ladies wearing these ornaments in 
their head-dresses were to communicate with the Council, the 
latter might undertake to send the offender one of their appro- 
priate leaflets. An impersonal appeal of that sort might have 
more effect than an individual remonstrance. 
On being put to the vote the amendment was rejected by a 
large majority. Mr. Martin thereupon intimated that he would 
not proceed with his third amendment. 
This concluded the business, and an adjournment was made 
to the Theatre, where Lord Avebury delivered his Presidential 
Address : — 
“ Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff, in the last volume of his 
charming Diary, tells us that Brandis, the eminent botanist, said 
of himself : ‘ When I was fifteen my relation, the famous old 
Professor Link, said to me, “ Do not think yourself yet a 
botanist ; you do not know 3,000 plants. No one has a right 
to call himself a botanist who does not know 5,000 ; and no one 
is a great botanist unless he knows 20,000.” ’ 
“ It would, of course, not be fair to attach to Professor 
Brandis’s words a meaning which I am sure he would repudiate. 
Nevertheless, there are many who seem to think they know a 
plant if they can mention it by name and know a few of its 
most obvious characteristics. This, however, is really as if a 
person was to claim to know London because he could find an 
address in the London Directory. 
“No one in the world knows 20,000 plants, or 5,000. I might 
almost say no one really knows a single one. We all remember 
Tennyson’s profound and beautiful lines about ‘ the flower in the 
crannied wall.’ Tennyson, however, may perhaps be said to 
have been speaking rather as a philosopher than as a botanist. 
But even apart from metaphysics, if we consider the plant from 
a merely botanical point of view — its past history, relations, and 
life-history — how little we know even about the commonest 
and most familiar species. 
“ Apart from botanists, we may partly realise how incomplete 
and inadequate are the popular ideas, if we remember how often 
people talk of being ‘fond of flowers,’ or ‘devoted to flowers.’ 
I am not sure that I ever heard anyone — not a real botanist — 
speak of being fond of plants. But if one phase of plant-life is 
more important than another, it is the seed, not the flower. The 
