Frederick Keeble

“ In as much as it is our custom to erect none but the slightest and most casual memorials to our distinguished men of science or of letters, there is reason to rejoice that the name of Lindley is not inadequately commemorated. ”

“ The most conspicuous direct services rendered by Lindley to the Society were the laying out of the Society's garden at Chiswick and the organisation, with Bentham, of the celebrated flower-shows which have served as models for the exhibits of horticultural societies all over the world. Those who know how extraordinarily valuable, not only to horticulturists but also to botanists, are the periodical "shows" held by the Royal Horticultural Society, will be grateful to Lindley for the perspicuity which led him to replace the old and gaudy "fêtes" by these admirable exhibitions. ”

“ The "fancying" instinct, latent in every Englishman and curiously characteristic of the race, was evoked by the bizarre form of these plants. Orchid-growing became the hobby of the well-to-do. Gardeners with no knowledge of science and regardless of text-book dicta on sterility, proceeded to raise the most marvellous series of hybrids—bi-generic, tri-generic, multi-generic—which any sane and scholastic botanist would have declared to be impossible. ”

“ The commanding position to which these men attained in the world of science was of course due, primarily, to their ability and—equally of course—to circumstance. The great wars were over and in the peaceful years men were free to turn their energy to constructive purposes. Horticulture—ever a British art—became unreservedly popular. Explorers and collectors, encouraged and assisted by Banks and others, sent home rich supplies of new or rare plants and thus provided British systematists with a vast array of material for their work of reconstructing the flora of the world. ”

“ For nearly 25 years he edited the Gardeners' Chronicle and did more than any other man to keep the science and practice of horticulture on good terms with one another. To those of us who know how generally the cares of organisation give excuse for slackness in research, Lindley's indomitable activity, both in administration and in investigation, becomes indeed impressive and inspiring. ”

“ The activity of the collector, the generosity of the patron and the labour of the systematist led not only to a general advance in methods of classification but also to a very special advance in the knowledge of what is, in many ways, the most interesting group of plants on the face of the earth—the Orchidaceae. Among the plant-treasure from India, Australia and Malaya were large numbers of epiphytic orchids. The problem of cultivating such strange and fascinating plants challenged the skill of the gardener. ”

“ Two citations from the introductory pages of Lindley's classic, The Theory and Practice of Horticulture, must suffice to exemplify his incisive style—Le style c'est l'homme, and Lindley the man hated circumlocution and had no time to waste—"there are, doubtless, many men of cultivated or idle minds who think waiting upon Providence much better than any attempt to improve their condition by the exertion of their reasoning faculties. For such persons books are not written" ”

“ Indeed it is a strange fact, and one worthy of the attention of our physiologists, that the gardeners are still endeavouring to puzzle out for themselves the reasons for their practices unaided by the physiologists. ”

“ When it is remembered that Bentham, who elaborated the orchids for the Genera Plantarum, held broader views of generic limits than the majority of botanists, the fact that 114 or more than a third of the genera retained are Lindleyan is a striking testimony to the accuracy and range of Lindley's work in the group. Pfitzer in the work already cited retains 127 of Lindley's genera. In no other great family probably has one man left so large a mark as Lindley has left in the Orchidaceae. ”

“ Though the botanist of the present day finds on perusing this work that physiological knowledge in 1840 was in a singularly crude state, and may rejoice at the rapid progress of discovery since the time when Lindley's book was written, yet the fact remains that few, if any, men at the present day could make a better statement of the physiological principles underlying practical horticulture than that presented by John Lindley. ”

“ Having regard to the part which Lindley played in preserving Kew from the devastating clutches of the politicians it is but fit that that Institution should contain the most valuable of Lindley's scientific possessions, his orchid herbarium,—that his general herbarium is at Cambridge may be news to such Cambridge botanists as in the days of a decade or two ago learned Botany without such adventitious aids. ”

“ But of all Lindley's public works that which he undertook for the saving of Kew from destruction is of the most immediate interest to botanists. In 1838 a small committee consisting of Lindley, Paxton and J. Wilson (gardener to the Earl of Surrey) were commissioned to report on the state of the Royal Gardens. After exposing the incompetence and extravagance of the then administration Lindley recommended that the Royal Gardens, Kew, should be made over to the nation and should become the headquarters of botanical science for England, its Colonies and Dependencies. ”

“ Though never adopted by other writers this fact did not prevent Bentham and Hooker from citing Lindley's work frequently in their Genera Plantarum. As Mr Botting Hemsley observes, Lindley, who in all questions of classification was both cautious and modest, seems to have been an evolutionist without knowing it. Thus in the course of discussion on the permanency of species he observes that "all the groups into which plants are thrown are in one sense artificial, in as much as nature recognises no such groups. ”