452 
London  Botanic  Gardens. 
j  Am.  Joui  Pharm. 
I     October  1905. 
been  little  more  than  the  ornamental  grounds  of  her  residence. 
Kew  is,  therefore,  in  a  measure,  an  offshoot  of  the  Chelsea  Physic 
Garden. 
The  last  Botanic  Gardens  which  remain  to  be  considered  in  de- 
tail are  those  of  the  Royal  Botanic  Society,  in  Regent's  Park.  These 
were  begun  in  1839  by  that  Society,  with  the  ultimate  object  of 
forming  "  extensive  botanical  and  ornamental  gardens  within  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  metropolis,"  the  purpose  by  which  the 
Society  was  animated  in  so  doing  being  the  "  promotion  of  Botany 
in  all  its  branches,  and  its  application  to  medicine,  arts  and  manu- 
factures." 
Besides  these,  which  constitute  the  only  public  Botanic  gardens 
in  London  or  its  environs,  mention  must  also  be  made  of  the  Gar- 
dens of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society,  formerly  at  Chiswick,  and 
now  at  Wisley,  in  Surrey.  The  Horticultural  Society  has,  through- 
out, excluded  the  cultivation  of  medicinal  plants  from  its  field  of 
operations,  and  this  is  a  distinction  which  holds  good,  broadly,  be- 
tween "  Horticultural  "  and  "  Botanic  "  gardens  in  this  country. 
In  view,  however,  of  the  importance  of  the  Horticultural  Society's 
Gardens  from  the  cultural  point  of  view,  a  short  account  of  them 
will  be  given  at  the  end  of  this  introduction. 
Before  proceeding  with  the  individual  accounts  of  these  gardens, 
it  will  not  be  without  interest  to  pass  briefly  in  review  the  salient 
features  which  they  have  in  common,  as  well  as  those  in  which  they 
differ  from  one  another. 
The  arrangement  of  the  plants  in  the  gardens  may  conveniently 
be  considered  first,  and  affords  much  that  is  of  interest.  The  Chel- 
sea Garden,  as  we  have  just  seen,  was  framed,  in  the  main,  on  the 
pattern  of  the  herbalists'  gardens;  to  this  we  may  add  that  one  of 
the  principal  aims  of  its  founders  was  the  arrangement  of  plants  in 
a  systematic  manner.  At  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
plants  were  arranged  according  to  the  systems  of  Ray  and  Tourne- 
fort,  and,  in  practice,  this  scheme  is  still  partly  adhered  to,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  convenience,  in  most  Botanic  Gardens,  inasmuch  as  trees  and 
shrubs  are  generally  grouped  apart  from  herbaceous  plants.  Towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  we  find  the  Linnean  classification 
supplanting  the  systems  of  Ray  and  Tournefort,  to  be  superseded, 
in  turn,  by  those  of  Decandolle  and  Lindley  towards  the  middle  of 
the  last  century.    Since  the  re-organization  of  the  Garden  in  1902, 
