“ Brown, Blume and above all Lindley threw themselves with enthusiasm into the task of discovering the clues to the classification of these plants, the form of whose flowers transgress so glaringly the rules of morphology—dimly surmising perhaps that if the key to evolution is ever to be found it will be discovered by the study of the group of plants which appear to represent evolution's latest prank. ”

“ He now turned his attention to the study of Botany; but he never paid much heed to systematic botany, for his taste lay in the direction of what is now called Ecology. He then wrote "Botanists would rather receive one of our most common weeds from a newly-discovered or newly-explored country, than a new species of an already known genus. There are higher departments of Botany than mere collectors of specimens are aware of; for to ascertain the geographical distribution of a well-known species is a point of vastly superior interest to the mere acquisition of a rare specimen." ”

“ The genus Lindleya is reminiscent to systematists of their great colleague and the name of Lindley is known and honoured by all our horticulturists. Of the man himself just so much may be said as to give form to the mind's image of him.
He was of middle height, active, upright, with shoulders somewhat sloping and of heavy tread. The sightlessness of one eye gave to his resolute face a somewhat strange look. Simple in habits, strenuous in work and perspicacious in judgment, John Lindley was a warm hearted and generous friend, particularly to young botanists. ”

“ If one lives to be an old man, one will have to say, 'I remember to have heard Agassiz say so and so,' and then every one will listen, just as we should do to a person who had conversed with Linnaeus or Cuvier." We must remember that this appreciation of Agassiz's ideas was written nine years before the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, and at a time when American men of science were much interested in a controversy as to whether mankind are all descended from Adam and Eve, or from several separate creations in different parts of the world. ”

“ It has been necessary to go beyond the strict limits of the history of British Botany in order to make it clear to what extent and at what period our two distinguished fellow-countrymen contributed to the development of the natural system of classification. Enough has been said to establish the importance and the opportuneness of their contributions: if Pisa was glorified by the birth of Systematic Botany, and Paris by its adolescence, Oxford and Cambridge were honoured by its renascence. ”

“ My botanical knowledge extends to about thirty of the commonest plants. I am very fond of botany, but I have not much opportunity of learning anything, because I have only to show the plant to James White, who tells me all about it, which I forget the next minute. My mineralogy embraces about twelve minerals, of which I know only the names. I am totally unacquainted with foreign shells, and know only about two hundred and fifty native ones. As to ornithology, I have stuffed about thirteen birds. In chemistry I read a few books, and tried some experiments. ”

“ He chose for his subject the relation between host and parasite in plant disease. He defined disease in its most generalised form as "the outcome of a want of balance in the struggle for existence." But the particular problem to which he addressed himself was the way in which the balance is turned when one organism is invaded by another. This is the most common type of disease in plants and a not infrequent one in animals. The first result reached was identical with that of Pasteur for the latter; the normal organism is intrinsically resistant to disease. ”

“ In Hope Scotland had a physiologist of originality and skill—who was not only informed upon the work of Hales, Duhamel, Mariotte and others, but who made his own experiments, clearly devised and effective, and whose catholicity is attested by his dealing with such problems as growth in length and thickness, effect of light and gravity, movement of water, healing of wounds, and the like. This physiology was an essential element of his teaching, and the effect upon students of contact with such direct wresting of truth from Nature must have been immense. ”

“ Some men are remembered for individual discoveries, and in such cases it is not difficult to give a précis of their contributions. But Nehemiah Grew is remembered because, contemporaneously with Malpighi, he actually created the science of plant anatomy,—a subject which, before his day, was practically non-existent. Modern botanists, conscious how small an addition to the fabric is now regarded as a satisfactory life-work, must stand amazed and somewhat humbled before the broad and sound foundations laid by this seventeenth century physician. ”

“ 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. Such brilliant use was made of opportunity that our country took the lead in systematic botany. ”

“ Ecology has the great merit of taking its followers into the field, where they are confronted with a wide range of problems not hitherto regarded as strictly within the province of the botanist. At the same time it exacts the most critical acquaintance with the minutiae of the taxonomist, so that a new sphere of usefulness is opened to the systematist. Ecology should have a great part to play in helping to break down the frontiers which have too long tended to separate Botany from the other sciences, and the maintenance of which is not in the true interests of the subject. ”

“ His educational method of teaching was totally different from the mere instructional method of all previous lecturers. To cram up facts was the students' duty in the Medical schools, where botany was supposed to be taught. To learn by their own discovery was his new method, and so each student educated himself by examining and recording plant structures first seen by his own dissections. Having long been in the habit of observing himself, he was early convinced of the importance of practical work and he always had "demonstrations," as he called them, from living specimens. ”

“ Surely no greater technical benefit was ever conferred upon a future generation by the veterans of science than this Index. It smooths the way for every systematist who comes after. It stands as a monument to an intimate friendship. It bears witness to the munificence of Darwin, and the ungrudging personal care of Hooker. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To be useless, various, and abstruse, is a sufficient recommendation of a science to make it pleasing to me. I don't know how I shall ever find out the different genera of mosses. Lichens I think will be easy" (he little knew them!) "but fungi I shall not attempt; not at all from their difficulty, but only because they are not easily preserved. But do not say that the study of Cryptogamia is useless. Remember that it was from the genus Fucus that iodine was discovered." ”

“ This error led to some mistaken, and indeed impossible views of the process of development. I mention this partly because I have noticed the same fundamental mistake in the work of much more modern writers. "We are none of us infallible—not even the youngest of us," and among the latest fossil-botany papers I have read, I have detected the very same confusion between differences of size and differences of age, which constitutes the most serious blemish in Williamson's writings. ”

“ A few years later Stephen Hales was carrying out the famous experiments which are embodied in his Vegetable Staticks, entitling him to be justly regarded as the Father of plant physiology. Notwithstanding so admirable a beginning, the next century was almost a blank. The essay on John Hill serves to illustrate the sterility of this period. The dominant influence in Botany in the eighteenth century was that of Linnaeus, whose genius as a taxonomist gave the most wonderful impulse to the study of Botany that it has ever received. ”

“ With the establishment of the doctrine of orderly evolution of species under known laws I close this list of those recognised principles of the science of geographical distribution, which must guide all who enter upon its pursuit. As Humboldt was its founder, and Forbes its reformer, so we must regard Darwin as its latest and greatest law-giver. ”

“ The man who put the industrious but blind gropings of this period in morphological botany straight, both as regards the development of the embryo and the comparative ontogeny of archegoniate plants was Hofmeister, and like all exceptional men he belonged to the new period created by him.
The great advantage of this course of lectures seems to me to be that it approaches the study of the history of botany in the right way; for progress in our science has been the result of individuals rather than of schools. ”

“ A knowledge of plants would be acquired as a natural consequence of the surroundings, and without the effort entailed by study in later years. Few ever have known, or ever will know, plants as he did. Such knowledge comes only from growing up with them from earliest childhood.
Side by side with this almost unconscious education in Botany the ordinary curriculum of school and of college was pursued. There is no record of academic successes either at the High School, or at the University of Glasgow, beyond a prize "for the best Essay on the Brain and Nerves," in 1836. ”

“ In his works, he rises above mere technical description of the species with which he is dealing. His mind is filled with the beauty and wonder of plants; and he strives to impress the reader with the deep interest of the study of botany. He endeavours always to popularize his favourite pursuit by means of pleasant general introductions, and to promote a better knowledge of seaweeds or of flowering plants by appealing to his readers to collect, and by giving instructions for the gathering and preserving of specimens. ”

“ Linnaeus of course, botanically, the outstanding fact of the eighteenth century, was no exception to the dictum that "the evil that men do lives after them."
It was supposed that botany had reached its culminating point in Linnaeus and that improvement could only be made in details—elaborating and extending his system. As Sachs tells us in his History, the result was that "Botany ceased to be a science; even the describing of plants which Linnaeus had raised to an art became once more loose and negligent in the hands of his successors. ”

“ The fact is that hardly anyone can really penetrate far into nature's secret places without losing his way. The virgin lands of knowledge that lie beyond the area of contemporary possession are first invaded by those who can breach the barriers that oppose advance, for genius, by its wider outlook enables those who are endowed with it to recognise the weaker spots in these barriers, and thus to lead the attack. ”

“ The science of plant breeding, too long neglected by the countrymen of Darwin, has been pursued with much success for a decade, and has already reached the "producing stage" in respect of new and improved races of agricultural plants.
The youngest branch of Botany is Ecology or the study of vegetation in relation to habitat—particularly soil in its widest sense. This department deals with the recognition and distribution of the different types of plant community in relation to topography and the factors—chemical, physical and biologic—which determine this distribution. ”

“ Harry Marshall Ward belongs to a generation younger than any of the foregoing. His student days coincided with the renaissance of Botany in England in the seventies of the last century, and coming under the influence of Huxley, Thiselton-Dyer, Vines and others, Ward early revealed himself as an ardent investigator. For twenty-five years he devoted his remarkable energies to a series of connected researches bearing broadly on the nutrition of the Fungi and allied organisms with especial reference to the relationships between host and parasite. ”

“ Andrew Balfour—conspicuous among their fellows for their activity in promoting the cause of medical education and in the planning of the Royal College of Physicians, were the pioneers of the study of Botany as a science. Determined that the apprentices in Medicine should have adequate opportunity of learning the sources of many of the drugs in use, they acquired a lease of a small area of land in the neighbourhood of Holyrood Palace in which they arranged to cultivate medicinal plants, stocking it from their own gardens and from those of friends. ”

“ Such a garden would be the great source of new and valuable plants to be introduced and dispersed through this country, and a powerful means of increasing the pleasures of those who already possess gardens: while, what is far more important, it would undoubtedly become an efficient instrument in refining the taste, increasing the knowledge, and augmenting the rational pleasures of that important class of society, to provide for whose instruction is so great and wise an object of the present administration. ”