XV111 
IN MEMORIAM 
no doiabt confirmed Collett in his permanent devotion to botany. 
He contributed his first botanical papers to its journal and is also 
reported to have delivered to it a lecture on polarised light. 
Collett collected assiduously the plants of Simla and formed a 
herbarium which he used in the preparation of this book. After 
his death it was given by his family to Kew. In 1887-88 he was 
in command of a brigade in Burma, and in the Southern Shan 
States on the little-explored frontier of Upper Burma he found 
an opportunity of breaking new ground. In A. H. Hildebrand, 
C.I.E., the superintendent of the Southern Shan States, he found 
a colleague of tastes sympathetic with his own. Collett says : 
‘ I began collecting plants in this region partly to gratify my own 
love of botany, and partly in response to the request of my friend 
Dr. (now Sir George) King, K.C.I.E., E.R.S.’ The results were 
published in 1890 in the ‘Journal of the Linnean Society’ 
(Botany, xxviii. pp. 1-150). No fewer than 725 species of flower- 
ing plants were enumerated. These were worked out at Kew and 
published under the joint names of Collett and W. B. Hemsley. 
The collection included two of the most remarkable plants ever 
introduced into European gardens. Both are remarkable for the 
size of their flowers : Bosa gigantea is the largest single-flowered 
rose known, it is described as having flowers 5-6 inches in dia- 
meter ; it climbs to the top of the tallest trees, and Collett is said to 
have detected it at the distance of two miles by means of a field- 
glass; Lonicera hildebrandiana is a honeysuckle with flowers 
seven inches long ; it was named in honour of his friend who 
‘ kindly gave much assistance in collecting,’ and who, after an 
infinity of trouble, ultimately succeeded in transmitting living seeds 
to Kew. In 1889 Collett had himself sent to Kew living plants 
of two extremely remarkable orchids which he had discovered, 
Bulbophyllum racemosum and Cirrhopetalum Collettii. 
After 1889 Collett’s hands were pretty full of serious military 
and administrative duties. I heard nothing from him till after his 
retirement in 1893. Even then it is an open secret that high pro- 
fessional advancement was still within his reach. But he had 
begun to be afflicted with deafness, and as he told me in after 
years he thought no one with that infirmity was justified in 
assuming high military command. 
