Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
History
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
Botanists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Botany -- Great Britain -- History
Though space will not allow reference to other text-books and to
innumerable minor publications--many of which may be found in the
Lindley Library in the Royal Horticultural Society's headquarters
at Vincent Square--a brief mention must be made of the _Botanical
Register_. This periodical was founded in 1815, and so early as 1823
Lindley became a contributor to it; but it was not till 1829 that his
name appeared on the title-page. From that time he was sole editor till
1847, when the _Botanical Register_ ceased to appear; unable doubtless
to stand against the _Botanical Magazine_ which under the editorship of
Hooker had passed from a moribund state into one of remarkable vigour
which now, 125 years after its foundation, it still enjoys.
_Orchids._
The magnitude of Lindley's work among his favourite group of plants,
the Orchidaceae, deserves recognition by the general botanist.
Botanical knowledge with respect to the group was in a very rudimentary
stage when Lindley took up its study. Robert Brown and Blume were
already engaged upon the investigation of orchids, but they relied
mainly on herbarium material. Lindley, on the other hand, began with
living plants and ended with living plants, though, as his herbarium
testifies, he did not neglect dried specimens. A circumstance that
favoured Lindley in these studies was the fact that William Cattley,
an early patron of Lindley, was one of the most successful of the early
cultivators of epiphytic orchids.
The chief of Lindley's published contributions to the knowledge
of orchids, apart from scattered figures and descriptions in the
_Botanical Register_, the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, Lindley and Paxton's
_Flower Garden_, the _Journal of the Linnean Society_, and in other
serials and periodicals, are to be found in _The Genera and Species
of Orchidaceous Plants_, 1830-1840, in which are described all the
species (1980) known of 299 genera; _Sertum Orchidaceum_ (1838); _Folia
Orchidacea_, 1852-1855; and _The Vegetable Kingdom_.
It is unfortunate that no attempt has as yet been made to catalogue the
species described by Lindley; but with regard to genera an approximate
list of those proposed by him may be attempted, and is interesting as
giving some idea of the extent and value of Lindley's investigations in
the group.
In the third edition of _The Vegetable Kingdom_ he estimates the number
of orchid genera at 469. Bentham and Hooker (_Genera Plantarum_, 1883)
admit 334, and new genera proposed since that date amount to 125.
Pfitzer (Engler and Prantl, _Natürlichen Pflanzen-familien_, 1889)
describes 410.
The following is a list of Lindley's genera, admitted by Bentham and
Hooker, in the sequence in which they appear in the _Genera Plantarum_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account