richard warner’s “ plants woodfordienses.” 
79 
written from Walthamstow in 1802 : this letter, by permission 
of the Council of the Society, I have been allowed to photograph 
and to reproduce in facsimile. (Plates V. & VI.) 
I have thus been able to submit the manuscript annotations 
to a close criticism from the point of view of penmanship, and 
as a result I have become fully convinced that the writing is the 
writing of Benjamin Meggot Forster and not that of Edward 
Forster. I do not propose to go into details, but I may call 
attention to the shaping of the capital letter F, the small letters 
f and k, the figures 8 and 4, and the habit of placing a colon where 
most people would put a simple dot, as features which are common 
cft . yyt'- TCcnvte*. 
1 2 ^ / 8 IA • 
FIG. I.-AUTOGRAPHS OF BENJAMIN AND EDWARD FORSTER. 
Iq both Benjamin’s letter and signature and to the manuscript 
annotations, whilst there is no such correspondence with Edward’s 
writing. 
It was then Benjamin Forster who collected the plants and 
who formed the herbarium, referred to as “ my Walthamstow 
herbarium,” now included in Edward Forster’s Collection at the 
British Museum, and who wrote the MS. notes. When Benjamin 
died, in 1829, his surviving brother must have inherited his 
effects, including his herbarium and the annotated copy of 
Warner’s “ Plantae Woodfordienses,” and these, twenty years 
later, at Edward’s own decease, were wholly attributed to him 
