Part 23

BY J. B. FARMER

Position of Botany before Brown--narrative--diary--naturalist to the Flinders expedition--travels in Australia--his method in the field--Essay and Prodromus on the vegetation of New Holland--the Proteaceae and Asclepiadaceae--Brown's digressions--his tenacity and caution--impregnation--views on the morphology of the Gymnosperms in the memoir on Kingia--foundation of ovular morphology--cell nucleus discussed--the simple microscope--"Brownian movement" investigated--summary of other work--Bryophytes--interest in fossil plants--personal characteristics--Asa Gray's story--the Banksian collections--the British Museum and Linnean Society--contemporary appreciation--his outstanding merits.

Someone has affirmed that no man is greater than the age in which he lives. A cryptic utterance, savouring perhaps of a certain dash of impressionism, and not altogether false as it is assuredly not wholly true. If, however, we endeavour dispassionately to appraise the performance of the world's great (though perhaps we should exclude the few greatest) men we shall probably discover that the implied limitation is justified, at least in part, by history and experience. 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. But the new territory, even after it is won, is ever surrounded by unknown regions, still waiting to be overrun when, but not until, the conditions for further expansion shall have been fulfilled.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the time was ripe for such an addition of new territory to the regions of Botany already occupied at that period. In England, at any rate, the work inaugurated by Ray and others had become overshadowed by the authority of Linnaeus, and even on the Continent the effective advance of the science was for various reasons almost stayed. It is true that in France the Jussieus had started advance on fruitful lines, and others like De Candolle were endeavouring to feel their way through the maze of dimly comprehended relationships, but their efforts were obscured by the growing and fatal facilities for piling up mere catalogues of plants without the clues necessary to direct their energies into more profitable channels. As regards the flowering plants, there was, it is true, a groping after a partially perceived natural system, but the lower ranks of the vegetable kingdom formed, so far as scientific purposes were concerned, a terra incognita, and the attempts to elucidate the morphology of these groups in the light of the angiosperms were, as we now can see clearly enough, plainly foredoomed to failure.

Facts were distorted and observations misinterpreted in ways that now seem to us almost to smack of sheer perversity, but we must not forget that the methods which in later years have proved so effective had not then been recognised; Hofmeister, with his marvellous genius, had not as yet arisen to shew the way through the maze of the lower forms.

But what does strike one as astonishing, or might do so if the circumstance were not still so common, is the evidence of the difficulty men experienced in really seeing things as they were, and of distinguishing the fundamentally important from the trivial or even irrelevant.

As always, what was needed was the man who could fix his gaze on facts, who would spare no pains to find out what was true, and thus succeed in discovering a sure base to serve as a vantage ground for further advance. Von Mohl was one of these, and earlier in the century there was the man, the subject of this lecture, who by his single-hearted search after truth, and the extraordinary ardour and ability with which he prosecuted his investigations will always occupy a high position in the history of Botany.

Robert Brown came of a stock which refused to bow the knee to authority, though his forbears did not, any more than himself, hesitate to impress the weight of it on others. His father was a non-juring clergyman of Montrose, and was in consequence obliged to leave the official ecclesiastical fold. But he carried a congregation with him, and not desiring to set up novel forms of church government, managed to get himself consecrated bishop of the new flock. As bishop, priest and deacon, tres in uno juncti, he ministered to his Edinburgh church, and his episcopal staff may still be seen in the rooms of the Linnean Society. His son Robert, who was born in 1773, inherited both his father's independence and also his dominant character. And, indeed, the great influence he wielded in the botanical world was due in no small degree to his strong personality, reinforced as it was by his high scientific attainments.

He began at an early age to evince a love of botany and to give proof of the strong critical faculty which enabled him so successfully to solve the problems he attacked, and so materially to advance our science. He added to his mental attainments a wonderfully methodical habit, and the diary of his earlier years reveals him to us not only as a hard-working student but as one meticulously accurate in detail.

In 1795 he was appointed Surgeon mate to the Fifeshire Regiment of Fencibles, and his letter of appointment signed by the Colonel, James Durham, is preserved in the Natural History Museum. His regiment was quartered in Ireland, and he made good use of his time, collecting all the plants he could get hold of, including mosses and liverworts, of which he amassed a considerable collection. Indeed, it is said that he owed his first acquaintance with Sir Joseph Banks to his discovery in Ireland of the rare moss Glyphomitrium Daviesii. This recognition by Sir Joseph proved the turning-point of his life. The six years or so that he spent in the Fencibles were turned to good account, and in looking to his own record of his life during those years one realises how thoroughly he earned the success that crowned his work in after life. There is much humour--perhaps of an unconscious kind, though I am not very sure that it was so very unconscious--in his carefully kept diary. Here is an extract, dated Feb. 7, 1800.

Before breakfast began the German auxiliary verbs.

Committed to memory a genus in Cullen's Synopsis. Described Polytrichum aloides--to be compared with Mr Menzies' P. rubellum.

Began the description of Osmunda pellucida.

Hospital usual time.

Took exactly the same walk as on the 4th. Blasia pusilla Lin., Weissia recurvirostra Hedw.? Dicranum varium Hedw., Polytrichum nanum, Polytrichum urnigerum, Phascum subulatum, Dicranum glaucum, absque fruct.

At dinner about 3 pints of port., remained in the mess room till about 9 or 10 o'clock--slept in my chair till nearly 3 in the morning.

Feb. 8, before breakfast finished the auxiliary verb Seyn, to be, in Wendeborn's German Grammar....

He did not, however, spend all his evenings in this fashion, but whether it was a glass of water, a pint of porter, or what not, it is all gravely set down, together with the work he succeeded in accomplishing. Instances of his thoroughness are not wanting. He says in one place he had read Nicholson's Chemistry, ch. vi., on the balance, "to be again perused, my defective knowledge of the mechanical powers rendering part of it unintelligible."

He was fond of reading in bed, but his light literature on these occasions included such works as Adam Smith, Blackstone's Commentaries, and a German Grammar.

His botanical acquirements were already attracting notice, and in 1798, being detached for recruiting service, he took the opportunity of a visit to London to utilise the splendid collections in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, and he was also in the same year elected an Associate of the Linnean Society. Soon after his return to Ireland he received a letter from Sir Joseph offering him the nomination as Naturalist to the Investigator, which was to be commanded by Captain Flinders. He at once decided to go, writing, as he tells us, by return of post.

Few men who have, at so early an age, enjoyed the opportunity of a voyage of discovery were so well equipped for the work as was Robert Brown. Blessed with a good constitution, which was also seaworthy, he possessed many physical advantages, but in addition to them he had trained himself as an accurate and accomplished botanist. He spent what time he could spare in London in acquainting himself with all that he could find of the New Holland Flora, and in this connection he had full access to the invaluable Banksian collections.

He was fortunate in having with him on the expedition as draughtsman Ferdinand Bauer, whose beautiful drawings are the admiration of all who know them.

The Investigator sailed from Portsmouth in 1801, and on landing at King George's Sound the first collections, amounting to about 500 plants, were made within three weeks. Three days at Lucky Bay yielded 100 species not met with in the previous locality. At Port Jackson the Investigator was condemned as unseaworthy, and Captain Flinders determined to return to England to obtain another ship in which to prosecute the expedition. The ship, however, was wrecked in Torres Straits, Brown's duplicate specimens, as well as the live plants on board, being lost, whilst Captain Flinders was held prisoner by the French at Port Louis. Meantime Brown and Bauer continued their travels in Australia, visiting Van Dieman's land as well. Brown subsequently returned to England, oddly enough in the old Investigator, in 1805 with a magnificent collection of plants some 4000 in number.

He did not merely collect, but he studied his collections on the spot--a method that may be strongly commended to young men who go out as botanists at the present time. His plan was to keep a working herbarium of all the plants gathered by him, as he went along, and he wrote up the descriptions in great part during his actual expeditions. In this way many problems formulated themselves which he was able either to investigate on the spot, or else to lay up additional material for further investigation at leisure. Thus the methodical ways of dealing with the plants collected in earlier years at home stood him in good stead at a time when the opportunities of a lifetime were crowding upon him.

On his return to England he was appointed librarian to the Linnean Society (1805), an office which he held till 1822, and he at once set about to utilise the vast resources which were now at his command.

He contributed to the narrative of The Flinders Expedition an account of the vegetation of New Holland. The essay is a remarkable one, not only for the masterly descriptions of the principal genera and orders which it contains, and the critical remarks which are scattered through the pages, but also for the geographical and statistical methods of treatment which he introduced. Many of the orders are new, and Brown shews his striking perception of affinity not only in his general discussion of the subject as a whole, but also in the definitions of the new orders and genera which he founded. This soundness of judgment is shewn on a still larger scale in his more definitely systematic works such as the Prodromus, but one may regard it generally as an astonishing tribute to his sagacity that very few of the groups founded by him have needed serious revision, even when further discoveries made it possible for later botanists to fill up the lacunae inevitable during those earlier days.

In the year 1810 there appeared the first volume of his great work, the Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. It is a misfortune that only one volume was ever published, although the work was advanced in MS. It has been said that a criticism of the author's Latinity at the hands of a reviewer was the cause of the stoppage of the publication, but there seems to be no real foundation for the story. Possibly the expense, coupled with the small return, may at any rate partly account for it. Be this as it may, Brown recalled from his bookseller all the unsold copies, and in the copy preserved at the Natural History Museum there is a list of the volumes actually sold written by Brown himself, and from a financial point of view the enterprise clearly proved itself to be an expensive experiment. The volume as published is a remarkable work, containing some 450 pages, including 464 genera, nearly one-third of which are here described for the first time and the number of species amounts to about 2000, some three-quarters of which were new to science. Add to this the fact that the flora as a whole is very unlike that of the northern hemisphere, also that the work was accomplished with such amazing rapidity (largely owing to his particular methods already alluded to), and one cannot withhold admiration at the energy and the learning of its author. It is a wonderful tribute to his wisdom that his descriptions and arrangements should have so stood the test of 100 years, during which time vast strides in our knowledge of the Australian and other floras have been made. But the lapse of time has resulted in scarcely any but trifling modifications of the general results as he left them. The Prodromus is well worth study, for in its pages one constantly meets with hints of observations which have borne fruit in later years. Some of them, indeed, e.g. his observations on Cycads, were expanded by himself into larger treatises in which much light has been thrown on morphological and taxonomic relationships previously but imperfectly understood.

The year before the publication of the Prodromus, Brown communicated to the Linnean Society an excellent and learned memoir on the Proteaceae. In this paper we encounter an instance of that whimsical introduction of observations exceedingly valuable in themselves, but mainly irrelevant to the matter in hand, which is a characteristic feature of many of his works. Perhaps it was due to the intense keenness with which he always followed up problems that interested him, so that, like Mr Dick's weakness for King Charles' head, they had to find a place in whatever else he was writing about. Thus his treatise on the Proteaceae starts off with advice to study the flower in the young, instead of only in its adult condition, and this is driven home by an excellent disquisition on the structure of the androecium and gynaeceum of Asclepiads, a subject which occupied his mind for some years and formed the basis for separate papers at subsequent periods. Only when he has discussed the morphology of the Asclepiad flower does he plunge, abruptly, into the questions relating directly to the Proteaceae.