Am.  Jonr.  Pharm. 
June,  1906. 
London  Botanic  Gardens. 
277 
itself  to  the  demonstrators,  Isaac  Rand  and  Joseph  Miller,  in  their 
writings,  has  been  applied  to  the  living  plants  themselves. 
In  1736  Linne  visited  the  garden,  and  cordial  relations  were 
established  between  the  illustrious  Swedish  botanist  and  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  Chelsea  Physic  Garden.  These  relations  were  main- 
tained through  the  medium  of  correspondence  during  succeeding 
years,  with  the  result  that  the  Linnean  or  "  sexual "  system  found 
among  the  members  of  the  Chelsea  Garden  staff  some  of  its  earliest 
exponents  in  this  country.  William  Hudson,  an  active  member  of 
the  Garden  Committee,  who  subsequently  held  the  post  of  Demon- 
strator of  Plants  and  Prafectus  Horti  from  1765  to  1771 ,  was  one  of 
the  earliest  Linnean  botanists  in  England,  and  he  is  even  stated  to 
have  been  the  first  author  in  this  country  who  embraced  the  Dnnean 
system.  This  statement,  however,  is  perhaps  not  quite  accurate, 
and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Benjamin  Stillingfleet  and  James 
Lee,  not  to  mention  Philip  Miller,  had  preceded  Hudson  in  the 
publication  of  Linnean  literature.  In  this  connection  the  following 
estimate  by  Pulteney  1  is  probably  not  far  from  the  truth  : 
"  By  all  these  preliminary  advances,2  the  learned  were  prepared  to  see  the 
English  botany  modelled  according  to  the  rules  of  the  Linncsan  school. 
Dr.  Hiix  seized  the  first  opportunity  of  attempting  it,  in  his  Flora  Britannica, 
1760  ;  but  it  was  executed  in  a  manner  so  unworthy  of  his  abili  ies  that  his 
work  can  have  no  claim  to  the  merit  of  having  answered  the  occasion  :  and 
thus  the  credit  of  the  atchievement  fell  to  the  lot  of  Mr.  William  Hudson, 
F.R.S.,  who,  to  an  extensive  knowledge  of  English  plants,  acquired  by  an 
attention  to  nature,  had,  by  his  residence  in  the  British  Museum,  all  the 
auxiliary  resources  that  could  favor  his  design  :  access  particularly  to  the 
Herbaria  of  almost  all  the  assistants  of  Ray  and  Dii^enius,3  mentioned  in  the 
Synopsis*  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  comparing  the  individual  specimens  of 
1  Lac.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  351-352. 
2  The  "preliminary  advances"  mentioned  by  Pulteney  comprise;  (1) 
References  to  the  writings  of  Linne  in  Martyn's  Virgil  (1740),  in  Dillenius's 
Historia  Muscorum  (1741),  in  Blackstone's  Specimen  Botanicum  (1746),  and  in 
the  "  Philosophical  Transactions  ;  "  (2)  the  arrangement  of  "  all  the  plants  of 
Ray's  Synopsis,  according  to  the  system  of  his  master,"  by  "a  Swedish  pupil 
of  the  Upsal  school"  (1754)  ;  (3)  Browne's  adoption  of  the  Linnean  system  for 
classifying  "his  Jamaica  plants"  (1756)  ;  (4)  Stillingfleet's  "Translations  of 
several  tracts  from  the  Amoenitates"  (1759),  and  Lee's  "Translation  of  the 
Elements  of  the  Sexual  System"  (1760);  and  (5)  Solander's  arrival  "into 
England  on  the  1st  of  July,  1760." 
3  Dillenius  was  the  first  Sherardian  Professor  of  Botany  at  Oxford. 
4  The  first  edition  of  Ray's  Synopsis  Stirpium  Britannicarum  was  published 
in  1690.    The  third  edition,  by  Dillenius,  was  issued  in  1724. 
