The plan of the proposed work having been carefully considered, Sir Joseph Hooker was able to confide its elaboration in detail to Mr. B. Daydon Jackson, Secretary of the Linnean Society, whose extensive knowledge of botanical literature qualifies him for the task. My father's original idea of producing a modern edition of Steudel's Nomenclator has been practically abandoned, the aim now kept in view is rather to construct a list of genera and species (with references) founded on Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum. Under Sir Joseph Hooker's supervision, the work, carried out with admirable zeal by Mr. Jackson, goes steadily forward. The colossal nature of the undertaking may be estimated by the fact that the manuscript of the Index is at the present time (1892) believed to weigh more than a ton.
The Kew 'Index,' will be a fitting memorial of my father: and his share in its completion illustrates a part of his character—his ready sympathy with work outside his own lines of investigation—and his respect for minute and patient labour in all branches of science.
FOOTNOTES:
[290] Proc. Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences, 1858.
[291] This view is rejected by some botanists.
[292] In the September number of Silliman's Journal, concluded in the January number, 1866.
[293] Charles Darwin, Nature Series, p. 41.
[294] Mrs. Haliburton was a daughter of my father's early friend, the late Mr. Owen, of Woodhouse.
[295] Mrs. Haliburton had reminded him of his saying as a boy that if Eddowes' newspaper ever alluded to him as "our deserving fellow-townsman," his ambition would be amply gratified.
[296] Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen. Vienna, 1881.