78 THE SOUTH AND ITS SCIENTIFIC SCOPE 
it on the surface. Depend upon it they will grow if cool 
and damp enough.^ 
Some points in its development quite baffled him ; he 
writes (July 6, 1841) : 
The examination of the Cabbage was made on the Island 
and several times since, and I send it in despair of under- 
standing its organisation. You will remark that the radicle 
is pointing away from the funiculus and is on the upper side 
of the seed as it hangs, and how it gets there, supposing the 
foramen of the ovule to be where Lindley ^ describes it should 
be, I camiot conceive, for in its turning it must go | round 
the seed. I suppose Bro^vn understands it all ; the flowers 
1 nowhere saw, but he has them in the museum from 
Anderson. 
Brown, it may be remembered, was the inheritor of the 
collections of Sir Joseph Banks, who had sailed with Cook. 
Two grasses form most rich and nutritious fodder for 
cattle, as we proved by some sheep being let loose on the 
Island, who soon ran wild, and though they were landed 
hungry and lean, they very soon fattened and thrived. 
Goats, pigs, rabbits, sheep, and perhaps small cattle, would 
^ After his return, however, he had to confess to Ross (Sept. 14, 1845) 
that the seed he himself brought back to Kew ' never vegetated, though Ave 
sowed all and in all manner of situations.' He wished to name the plant 
Eossia kerguelensis, but ' our friend Brown had already applied the MS. name, 
given both because of the anti-scorbutic nature of the plant and because 
Pringle wrote upon scurvy, which has not much to do with the matter, it must 
be confessed.' (To Ross, September 1, 1845.) 
2 John Lindley (1799-18(35). Like Brown and Bentham, Lindley, a hard 
worker and man of versatile powers, took a conspicuous part in building up 
the natural system of vlassification set forth by Jussieu as against the artitioial 
system of Linnaeus ; the convenience of which was merely for identif3'ing plants. 
Through the friendship of Sir W. J. Hooker (for he was an East Anglian) he 
became assistant librarian to Sir Joseph Banks : then Assistant Secretary and 
Secretary to the Royal Horticultural Society, 1822-60 ; Professor of Botany 
at University College, London, from 1828 ; editor of the Gardener's Chronicle, 
1841, till his death. He was mainly responsible for Kew Gardens being pre- 
served and made over to the nation as the headquarters of botanical science, 
though knowing full well that his opposition to officialdom would exclude 
him from receiving any appointment. His chief works were The Theory and 
Practice of Horticulture, 1840 ; The Vegetable Kingdom, 1846 ; the editing of 
Botanical Register, 1829-47, and various v.orks on the Orchids. Li his views 
of species ho has been described as an evolutionist without knowing it. 
