ADDRESS. 
xli 
tionably become the first botanic garden in Europe. I use this expression 
on the authority of another friend whom I have had the privilege of knowing 
for forty years, whom Humboldt described as Je premier Botaniste de I'Eurojye, 
accurate, sagacious, and profound, and whose knowledge is only equalled by 
his modesty. After this, it is not for your sakes, but Ibr my own, tliat I 
name Robert Brown: may i add, in passing, the expression of every onc’a 
wish that he would deposit more of his knowledge in prim ? 
Before I quit the subject of the great Institution at Kew, 1 ought to men¬ 
tion as one of the latest accessions to it a Cactus weighing a ton, as stated 
by Sir W. J, Hooker in his Report laid before Parliament; who adds that 
the collection of tliat most singular family (he refers to the collection at 
Kew), ‘* is now unrivalled in Europe.” 
With respect to new species of plants received only in the state of speci¬ 
mens for the Herbarium, they have been in part obtained from China, South 
America and New Zealand, but chiefly from Australia. The late expedi¬ 
tions into the interior—expeditions so creditable to the entorpriae, perseve¬ 
rance and intelligence of their conductors—have however been but little 
productive, so far as we at present know, in tiie department of Botany. 'I’he 
animal productions of New Holland, so wonderful in their form* and struc¬ 
tures, have long formed the most remarkable characteristic of its vast region: 
nor is its botany wiiJmut distinctions of much interest h may be said, 
however, in reference to the results of these later expeditions uhich have 
penetrated further inland, that they have not brought to our knowledge .any 
peculiarities in the vegetable khigdom so various and so striking as those 
which exist near the coasts, and which are sufficient to disbnguisli New 
Holland from the other regions of the world. 
In the diffusion of the riches of the vegetable world, steam navigation hag 
obviously been a most favourable auxiliary; so that “ even cuttings of 
plants ’ are now “actually sent successfully to Calcutta, Ceylon, &c.” In 
speaking of the exports from Kew, it is not unfitting to add, tliat “ between 
•our and five thousand plants of the famous Tusaac grass liavc been di- 
s^rsed from the Royal Gardens at Kew during the past year." I take 
these facts from the last Report lo Parliament. 
The increase in the number of visitors to that most flourishing establish- 
nient is some evidence at least of an increase of a taste for the development 
of sciMce, and probably of that increase of the love of scii-ncc which it is 
objects of the British Association to encourage in all classes. In 
i» the number of visitors was 9174; hut they arc nearly doubling every 
year. I„ \Ui, they were 15,1U; in 1845, 28,139; in 1846, 46,573. 
nrr^ • ^ PjiysioJogy, microscopic observers have of late been much 
upiea m investigating tlie phanomena of fecundation, and especially as 
to the mode ofaction of the pollen. 
n this subject botanists are sdll divided. Several experienced observers 
lately advanced and ingeniously supported by Professor 
wh* r V while others of great eminence deny the correctness on 
ic 11 IS theory is founded. Among these, the celebrated microscopic ob- 
Amici of Florence, very recently in an essay—communi- 
a ea to the ^ciendfic Meeting held in 1846 at Genoa—has endeavoured by 
minute examination of several species of Orchis to prove the exiotence of 
e essential part of the embryo anterior to the application of the pollen, 
mV!’ acts as the specific stimulus to Us development, 
this view receives groat support from some singular exceptions to the 
general law of fecundation. b • 
